Roman law in Ravenna

School of Advanced Study, University of LondonInstitute of Historical Research

Chapter Title: Roman law in RavennaChapter Author(s): Simon Corcoran

Book Title: RavennaBook Subtitle: its role in earlier medieval change and exchangeBook Editor(s): Judith Herrin, Jinty NelsonPublished by: School of Advanced Study, University of London, Institute of HistoricalResearch. (2016)Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv512x7n.15

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8. Roman law in Ravenna*

Simon Corcoran

In the thirteenth century Odofredus de Denariis, a leading Bolognese jurist (d. 1265), claimed that Ravenna was the source from where the Justinianic law books were brought to Bologna.1 When trying to explain why it was Bologna that had become the dominant centre for the study of the Corpus Iuris, it would certainly have been a plausible guess (and it is unlikely to have been more than that) for a Bolognese professor to assume that the former imperial capital in Italy was a suitable (and even obvious) conduit through which Justinian’s texts were transmitted. This kickstarted the ‘Roman law revival’. But while Ravenna was always a city of Roman law jurisdiction, it is not easy to demonstrate that it was especially significant in the making, teaching and transmission of Roman law, or that its continuing use of Roman law was especially vital and dynamic. This chapter seeks to give a brief overview of the sorts of things we can say about Roman law in Ravenna in the early middle ages. It is divided into three topics: Ravenna as a source of new law, Ravenna as a locus for the teaching of law and the transmission of normative texts, and finally Ravenna as a city where Roman law was actively used.

Ravenna, maker of Roman lawOn 6 December 402, the emperor Honorius issued a law at Ravenna addressed to Decius, urban prefect at Rome.2 Although emperors had visited Ravenna before, this law marks a significant change. Milan had been

* I should like to thank Judith Herrin and Jinty Nelson for asking me to contribute to this volume. I am especially grateful to Luca Loschiavo for letting me see the draft of an insightful article on legal teaching at Rome in the late antique and early medieval period. Thanks as always are owed to my Projet Volterra colleagues, Michael Crawford and Benet Salway. 1 Odofredus, In Digestum Vetus, de iustitia et iure, L. Ius civile (on Dig. I.1.6) and In Infortiatum, ad L. Falcidiam, L. Quaerebatur, Tres partes (on Dig. XXXV.2.82). For these and other associated passages, see F. C. von Savigny, Geschichte des römischen Rechts im Mittelalter, iii (2nd edn., Heidelberg, 1834), 426–9. Odofredus’s view also imagined an earlier migration of study from Rome to Ravenna at a time of war, although it is not quite clear when this was supposed to have happened. 2 CTh VII.13.15. The surviving text is so brief that it is clearly only an extract.


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the favoured imperial seat in Italy since the late third century,3 but now it was exchanged for Ravenna, where Honorius spent much of the rest of his reign, dying there in August 423.4 Afterwards, his nephew Valentinian III used it as his principal base following his installation in Italy from 426 onwards, although Rome became a more regular residence in the 440s, and sole residence in the 450s.5 Indeed, during the fifth century, although several emperors were proclaimed in Ravenna, more emperors died in Rome.6 Nonetheless, Ravenna was, together with Rome, the place from which most fifth‑century imperial laws were issued. The last ever law attested for a western emperor was issued at Ravenna by Glycerius shortly after his accession in March 473.7

The presence of the emperor and his court meant the presence of his chief legal officer, the quaestor, and of the magister officiorum and the officials of the scrinia (the palace bureaux) and their staff, including the corps of notarii, concerned with the emperor’s pronouncements. Although not all of them would have been legally trained, it can be presumed that there was always sufficient expertise around the court to cope with the emperor’s tasks of dealing with the proposals, queries and cases submitted to him and in issuing replies, rulings and laws in consequence.8 A long

3 For Milan as an imperial capital, see R. Krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals: Topography and Politics – Rome, Constantinople, Milan (Berkeley, Los Angeles, Calif., 1983), pp. 69–92; Milano capitale dell’impero romano 286–402 d.c., ed. M. P. Lavizzara Pedrazzini (Milan, 1990). 4 Most easily seen in O. Seeck, Regesten der Kaiser und Päpste für die Jahre 311 bis 476 n.Chr. (Stuttgart, 1919), pp. 304–48; also T. Honoré, Law in the Crisis of Empire 379–455 AD: the Theodosian Dynasty and its Quaestors (Oxford, 1998), pp. 228–47. 5 Seeck, Regesten, pp. 352–400; Honoré, Law in the Crisis of Empire, pp. 248–74. For Valentinian in Rome, see M. Humphries, ‘Valentinian III and the city of Rome (425–455): patronage, politics and power’, in Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity, ed. L. Grig and G. Kelly (New York, 2012), pp. 161–82. 6 For the relative statuses of Rome and Ravenna as imperial seats in the 5th century, see A. Gillett, ‘Rome, Ravenna, and the last western emperors’, PBSR, lxix (2001), 131–67. 7 PL, lvi. 896–8; G. Hänel, Corpus Legum (Leipzig, 1857), p. 260. The text is known from a single manuscript of an early canonical collection (Vaticanus Reg. Lat. 1997; L. Kéry, Canonical Collections of the Early Middle Ages (ca. 400–1140) (Washington, DC, 1999), p. 24). 8 For the imperial making of laws and letters, see Honoré, Law in the Crisis of Empire, pp. 11–29; J. F. Matthews, Laying Down the Law: a Study of the Theodosian Code (New Haven, Conn., 2000), pp. 168–99; S. Corcoran, ‘State correspondence in the Roman empire: imperial communication from Augustus to Justinian’, in State Correspondence in the Ancient World from New Kingdom Egypt to the Roman Empire, ed. K. Radner (New York, 2014), pp. 185–92. For lists of possible western quaestors of the 5th century, see Honoré, Law in the Crisis of Empire, p. 277; D. Liebs, Hofjuristen der römischen Kaiser bis Justinian (Munich, 2010), pp. 108–12, 125–9.


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and complex law on constitutional matters, but also other matters of civil law, issued to the Senate at Rome in November 426, was perhaps one of the most important legal texts to emanate from Ravenna.9 Among other things, it dealt with the question of what constituted generalitas (universal validity or applicability) in an imperial text and, most famously, with the matter of the status of the classical juristic writings. In a fragment from this law, termed the ‘Law of Citations’ (CTh I.4.3), authoritative juristic opinion was limited to the ‘Mighty Handful’ of Papinian, Paul, Gaius, Ulpian and Modestinus. The whole enactment is described by Honoré as a ‘mini‑code’ and proved a strong influence upon the legal ideas underlying the subsequent imperial codes. Although no doubt issued with the approval of Galla Placidia, de facto regent for the child‑emperor Valentinian III, the true originator was probably someone with juristic training among the entourage that had recently accompanied them from the east. Perhaps this was the magister officiorum, Helion, the most important of these officials, who returned to Constantinople by late December 426.10 Honoré has even suggested that the unknown quaestor who must have drafted the text itself should be identified as Antiochus ‘the elder’, named first (as an ex‑quaestor) in the Theodosian Code commission of 429 (CTh I.1.5), thus closely tying the ‘mini‑code’ to the greater code to come.11 It is often presumed that Theodosius II’s commissioners found their way to Ravenna in the 430s to raid the imperial archives for at least the early fifth‑century material in order to include it in his planned Code. The fact that most Ravennate laws of this period have only places of issue and not also a place of posting at another destination may favour, or at least does not undermine, this interpretation.12

The completed Theodosian Code was formally published in a ceremony in Constantinople in 437 and the copy intended for Italy was carried back by the praetorian prefect Faustus, who had two further copies made: one for reference for the urban prefect at Rome and a working exemplar for those termed the constitutionarii, who enjoyed a monopoly in producing further copies. It is not entirely clear whether these persons were imperial or prefectoral officials, or else somewhat private copyists

9 Seeck, Regesten, p. 352; Honoré, Law in the Crisis of Empire, pp. 249–51. 10 PLRE, ii, ‘Helion 1’. For the role of Helion, see M. McEvoy, Child Emperor Rule in the Late Roman West, AD 367–455 (Oxford, 2013), pp. 231–4. 11 Honoré, Law in the Crisis of Empire, pp. 252–7; Liebs, Hofjuristen der römischen Kaiser, pp. 125–6; H. Sivan, Galla Placidia: the Last Roman Empress (New York, 2011), p. 95. 12 For the debate on the use of the imperial archives for the Code, see Matthews, Laying Down the Law, pp. 241–53; and A. Sirks, The Theodosian Code: a Study (Friedrichsdorf, 2007), pp. 109–41.



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enjoying a lucrative monopoly. Nor is it clear where their copy was kept – possibly at Ravenna, if they were based in the current imperial residence. However, they came to realize that the urban prefect’s copy was being used improperly for further duplication. Perhaps they had simply been unable to supply sufficient copies at the right price to satisfy demand or, if that demand was generated mainly in Rome, their workshops and oversight in Ravenna were too remote. It may be that they had only recently discovered on a visit to Rome that unauthorized copies were being produced there. Whatever the case, they now acted swiftly to impetrate the emperor to repress this encroachment upon their privileges, which he did while in Rome in December 443.13

It was certainly at Ravenna that in June 448 Valentinian formally promulgated the collection of novels (that is, novellae constitutiones, new laws) sent to him by Theodosius the previous year. It had earlier been agreed that, with the publication of the Theodosian Code, no law issued in the future by an emperor in one half of the empire would be valid in the other half unless formally sent there and promulgated by his colleague.14

For the novels of Valentinian himself and his western successors, however, the importance of Ravenna is more occluded, since so many laws were issued in Rome and others, issued in Ravenna, are recorded as made public in Rome. This includes the sole law of Glycerius of 473, which only seems to have survived because the addressee, the praetorian prefect Himilco, promulgated the law at Rome. This suggests that, especially after the 440s, most later laws were known through texts displayed, copied or archived in Rome rather than Ravenna.

With the end of the line of emperors resident in Italy, Odovacer seems to have taken Ravenna as his chief seat, although we know little of his legislative or juridical activity. As king he was not quite sovereign, but acknowledged the nominal suzerainty of the emperor in Constantinople, although this did not prevent him acting with administrative independence.15 A glimpse of him in action at Ravenna survives in the text of a donation in the form

13 For the complexities of this issue, I rely upon the recent discussion by B. Salway, ‘The publication and application of the Theodosian Code’, MEFR – Antiquité, cxxv (2013), 345–8 (paras. 39–42 online). For Valentinian’s rescript, see Gesta Senatus, Constitutio de Constitutionariis (T. Mommsen, Theodosiani libri XVI (Berlin, 1905), i. 4). 14 Valentinian III, Nov. 26; cf. Theodosius II, Nov. 2. 15 E.g., grant of five‑year tax relief (Ennodius, Vita Epiphanii 106 (MGH AA 7, ed. F. Vogel (Hanover, 1885), p. 97)). For Odovacer’s position, see Malchus, Frag. 14 (R. C. Blockley, The Fragmentary Classicising Historians of the Later Roman Empire, ii (Liverpool, 1983), pp. 418–21). For a recent account of his regime, see P. Sarris, Empires of Faith: the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Islam, 500–700 (Oxford, 2011), pp. 97–9.



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of a letter he addressed to the comes domesticorum, Pierius, dated to March 489 at Ravenna, but known from a copy registered at Syracuse and then archived back in Ravenna.16 There is reference in the donation to both the magister officiorum (Andromachus) and the royal notarius (Marcianus),17 the latter writing up the document and the former adding his autograph subscription at the behest of and in the place of the king.

About Theoderic, by contrast, we know a great deal. His court was far more securely based in Ravenna than that of his imperial predecessors and he employed a full panoply of palatine officials, exemplified by Cassiodorus, who held office under him or his successors as quaestor, magister officiorum and finally praetorian prefect. Although de facto sovereign of his realm, Theoderic was careful, like Odovacer, to nuance his position and, in addition to not minting coins in his own name, but that of the emperor in Constantinople, he also generally avoided issuing formal leges, especially such as might radically interfere with existing Roman law.18 Despite this, the sorts of pronouncements written for the Ostrogothic kings by Cassiodorus are cognate with the more elaborate texts produced for emperors as survive unabbreviated in the various novels collections.19 Further, one edict with twelve clauses issued by Athalaric is symbolically compared to the Twelve Tables.20

In the longer term, however, Ostrogothic royal texts left a somewhat light imprint on later normative law, with one exception, the text known as the Edictum Theoderici, which is in essence a miscellany of reworked Roman law.21 This does not survive except via sixteenth‑century printed editions, and it consists of an undifferentiated sequence of 154 chapters,

16 P. Ital. I 10–11A–B; FIRA2 III, no. 99; now ChLA XX.703 and XLV.1331; PLRE II ‘Pierius 5’. 17 PLRE II ‘Andromachus 3’ and ‘Marcianus 10’. 18 See A. H. M. Jones, ‘On the constitutional position of Odoacer and Theoderic’, JRS, lii (1962), 126–30 [repr. in The Roman Economy, ed. P. Brunt (Oxford, 1974), pp. 365–74]; J. Moorhead, Theoderic in Italy (Oxford, 1992), pp. 39–51; P. Heather, ‘Gens and regnum among the Ostrogoths’, in Regna et Gentes, ed. H.‑W. Goetz and others (Leiden, 2003), pp. 85–134. 19 See, for instance, the discussion by M. S. Bjornlie, Politics and Tradition Between Rome, Ravenna and Constantinople: a Study of Cassiodorus and the Variae, 527–554 (Cambridge, 2013), pp. 206–15. Note that the Variae as compiled and edited are not a straightforward diplomatic record of Ostrogothic chancery activity. 20 Cassiodorus, Variae (Cassiodori Senatoris Variae, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, xi, ed. T. Mommsen (Berlin, 1894)), IX.18 (the edict) with IX.19.2 (allusion to the XII Tables). Note that Athalaric’s edict specifically orders the renewed application of a neglected law of Valentinian (Variae ix. 18.1). 21 Latin text, ed. F. Bluhme in MGH Leg. Tomus V (Hanover, 1875), pp. 149–68: FIRA2, ii. 683–710. For the English translation, see S. D. W. Lafferty, Law and Society in the Age of Theoderic the Great: a Study of the ‘Edictum Theoderici’ (Cambridge, 2013), pp. 243–94.



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plus a brief prologue and epilogue. Much mystery has surrounded the who, the when and the where of its original creation. Although one of the most accomplished studies has attributed it to the Visigothic king Theoderic II in the mid fifth century,22 the more widely‑held view, including in the most recent book‑length analysis, is that it was produced on the orders of Theoderic in Italy, in perhaps c.500.23 References to Rome (ET 10, 111) and the fact that the text and its constituent chapters are called edicts (consistent with the view that Theoderic issued edicts like a praetorian prefect, not formal leges like an emperor) certainly favour this interpretation. All the provisions are adapted from existing Roman legal sources (identified in the epilogue as novellae leges and vetus ius), especially the Theodosian Code and the Sententiae of Paulus,24 marking this as a typical late antique summarizing or excerpting text, providing a compendium of modified Roman legal rules handier and more focused than its extensive source material, although the organization is rather opaque. There is no explicit reference to Ravenna, beyond the fact that a text issued on the authority of Theoderic would be expected to emanate from his court and be a production of his officials.25 There is speculation, however, that its formal publication could have been in Rome during his ceremonial royal visit in 500.26 Despite the fact that the lack of any full manuscript renders much obscure, it is clear that this work was excerpted and quoted along with other Roman legal material in a variety of early medieval miscellanies.27 However, where any indication of source is given, it is regarded as being Justinianic, or at least properly Roman, with any connection to Ostrogothic Ravenna rendered invisible. One chapter even ended up in the medieval Vulgate of the Justinian Code.28

With the fall of Ravenna to imperial forces in 540, the status of the city as an administrative capital continued, but never again was there a resident ruler to make truly authoritative enactments. His place was taken

22 G. Vismara, Scritti di storia giuridica, i: fonti del diritto nei regni germanici (Milan, 1987), pp. 1–338. 23 Lafferty, Law and Society, esp. pp. 22–53; also P. Amory, People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489–554 (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 78–82. 24 Vismara, Scritti, pp. 209–40; Lafferty, Law and Society, pp. 60–99. 25 Lafferty, Law and Society, pp. 41–6. 26 E.g., Lafferty, Law and Society, p. 41, based on an interpretation of Anonymus Valesianus II 12.60, in Ammianus Marcellinus with an English translation in three parts, ed. and trans. J. C. Rolfe (3 vols., Cambridge, Mass., 1939), iii. 27 Vismara, Scritti, pp. 257–95. 28 CJ IX.16.(3) (P. Krüger, Codex Iustinianus, ed. minor, p. 379 n. 13); Vismara, Scritti, pp. 272–7.



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by the praetorian prefect, and soon the exarch. As a source of original law, Ravenna could now at most function as a conduit for measures issued from Constantinople.29 Even so, three significant events do merit some consideration, throwing light on how Ravenna functioned in the Byzantine period: the introduction of the Justinianic codification into Italy, the introduction of the Ecloga into Italy, and, finally, Constans II’s grant of autocephaly to the church of Ravenna.

The first of these, the promulgation of the Justinianic codification in Italy, is the most important in the long‑term historical perspective. This body of legal texts consisted of the Digest (fifty books, made up of edited extracts from the classical jurists) and the Institutes (a four‑book introductory survey for students), both issued at the end of 533, plus the Code (twelve books of edited extracts of imperial laws from the earlier Codes and other sources) in its second edition of 534 (replacing the first of 529).30 Between them these works superseded all previously authoritative Roman legal texts, and this was especially significant, since they did not simply gather together existing material, but incorporated or otherwise reflected a good deal of legal reform enacted by Justinian in the early years of his reign, especially in his ‘Fifty Decisions’ (530–1). This was a far more proactive, comprehensive and coherent legal intervention than attempted by any previous ruler, even Theodosius II in his Code. Its potential for impact upon Italy was greater than that from earlier piecemeal law‑making. Unfortunately, any role for Ravenna in receiving or disseminating the codification is almost invisible to us, although it is reasonable to infer that copies must have been sent and kept there. It is sometimes suggested that the works were already sent to Ravenna, as well as Rome, in 534.31 Even allowing for the decidedly friendly stance of Amalasuntha towards Constantinople, it hardly seems credible that she or any Ostrogothic ruler could formally accept or promulgate such material, so redolent of claims at once imperial and Catholic. Such a significant degree of legal unity or congruity between Italy and the empire at this time is surely unlikely, even allowing for the ambiguous constitutional situation. For instance, the 100‑year prescription in favour of the Roman church, enacted by Justinian in April 535 in a letter addressed to Pope John II, was

29 Some edicts of praetorian prefects of the east were collected as authoritative (Justinian, Nov. 166–8; C. E. Zachariä von Lingenthal, Anekdota, iii (Leipzig, 1843), pp. 227–78), but nothing similar is known for prefects or exarchs in Italy. 30 For brief overviews of the codification, see H. F. Jolowicz, Historical Introduction to the Study of Roman Law (3rd edn, rev. B. Nicholas, Cambridge, 1972), pp. 479–96; D. Liebs, ‘Roman law’, in The Cambridge Ancient History, xiv: Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, AD 425–600, ed. A. Cameron and others (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 247–51. 31 E.g. Bjornlie, Politics and Tradition, p. 224.



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meant to apply to properties within imperial territory, especially the islands in the west recently recovered from the Vandals, and can hardly have been expected to have been upheld by judges in Rome or Italy.32 Other references to Rome or Italy seem anchored in their historic status in Roman legal history, rather than current legislative realities.33 Misapprehension regarding Justinian’s legal influence in Ostrogothic Italy seems based chiefly on the belief that his corpus of texts was sent to the law school in Rome at this time, which seems doubtful (more on this question in the next section), and that the Code (I.1.8) is mirrored in contemporary papal texts (Collectio Avellana 84 and 92). In fact, the relevant Code text, a profession of faith by Justinian encapsulated in a letter of Pope John II, is a perplexing anomaly that is probably not original to the Code at all.34

Although the codification could have reached Ravenna at any time after 540, in the disturbed conditions of the Gothic War it can hardly have gained widespread or effective dissemination in Italy, and certainly not orchestrated from Ravenna, although (as shown below) some Justinianic measures are reflected in documents by the early 550s. In fact, it was only in August 554 that Justinian, responding positively to a plea from Pope Vigilius, issued a long enactment (the so‑called Pragmatic Sanction pro petitione Vigilii) that attempted to regularize the civil government of Italy.35 It is notable that the request came from the pope, then in Constantinople, not from any imperial officials in Ravenna. Among the measures taken, Justinian ordered his codification, which had some time before (iam … dudum) been sent with an edict of promulgation,36 to be enforced, and that future laws should also be promulgated by edict throughout Italy. It would appear, therefore, that the codification was already present in Italy, perhaps lodged in some office in Ravenna, but that few steps had been taken to do anything with it. This was now to change. The pragmatic sanction is addressed to the two senior officials

32 Justinian, Nov. 9. 33 E.g. CJ II.52.7; VII.31.1 (cf. Just. Inst. II.6.pr.). 34 B. Stolte, ‘Not in the Code, nor in the Basilica: C. 1.1.8 and its translation in the Basilica’, Annali del seminario giuridico dell’Università degli studi di Palermo (AUPA), liv (2010–11), 291–300. 35 Justinian, Nov. App. VII (Corpus Iuris Civilis, iii: Novellae, ed. R. Schoell and W. Kroll (Berlin, 1895), pp. 799–802); also at Iuliani Epitome Latina Novellarum Iustiniani, ed. G. Hänel (Leipzig, 1873), pp. 189–91. 36 Justinian, Nov. App. VII.11 (Schoell and Kroll, Corpus Iuris Civilis, iii. 800). D. Liebs, Die Jurisprudenz im spätantiken Italien (260–640 n.Chr.) (Berlin, 1987), p. 126, sensibly rejects any idea that this passage refers back to the original promulgating constitutions of 533 and 534.



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in Italy – Narses, the eunuch grand‑chamberlain and military supremo, and Antiochus, the praetorian prefect – and it was presumably sent to Ravenna. However, Ravenna and its place in the administration of Italy are nowhere described or even mentioned in the law. There may be a vague echo of the introduction of the codification into Italy via Ravenna in Agnellus’s account of Archbishop Maximian (in office 546–57), when he talks of the writings of Maximian in twelve books contained in one volume being taken to Rome (from Ravenna).37 However, this seems unlikely to be a dim if genuine memory of the twelve‑book Code reaching Ravenna as opposed, say, to a garbling of Paul the Deacon’s remarkably clear account of Justinian’s legal corpus.38 The only thing that can be said for this unhelpfully obscure passage is that it would at least place such an event in an appropriate time frame. The further effect of Justinian’s codification upon Ravenna is considered in the succeeding sections.

After 554, the presumption is that imperial laws would be sent to the prefect (or later the exarch) in Ravenna for further dissemination and promulgation, although this cannot easily be traced, and direct dissemination at least to Rome is attested. For instance, a law of c.555 on Italian and Sicilian debtors was addressed to Narses, Panfronius [sic], and the Senate, suggesting a Roman rather than Ravennate focus.39 A law of Maurice from 593, which attempted to bar those in the imperial service from becoming monks, although presumably sent also to the exarch at Ravenna, is only attested as having been sent directly to Pope Gregory I, who fiercely opposed it.40 Boniface V (619–25) is supposed to have decreed that rules for wills be observed in conformity with an imperial iussio, whose original date and content are unknown.41 Similarly, imperial mandates confirming papal elections, a requirement somewhat unevenly enforced up to the reign of Constantine IV,42 usually seem to have been sent

37 Agnellus, LPR LXXXI, ed. D. M. Deliyannis (CCCM, cxcix, Turnhout, 2006), 249; D. M. Deliyannis, Agnellus of Ravenna: the Book of Pontiffs of the Church of Ravenna (Washington, DC, 2004), p. 195. 38 Paulus Diac., Hist. Lang. I.25. 39 Justinian, Nov. App. VIII (Schoell and Kroll, Corpus Iuris Civilis, iii. 803). Pamphronius was perhaps urban rather than praetorian prefect (so PLRE IIIB ‘Pamphronius’; T. C. Lounghis and others, Regesten der Kaiserurkunden des oströmischen Reiches von 476 bis 565 (Nicosia, 2005), p. 337). 40 Gregory the Great, Reg. III.61, ed. D. Norberg, CCSL, cxl. 209–11; J. R. C. Martyn, The Letters of Gregory the Great (Toronto, 2004), i. 280–2, reporting delivery by the strator Longinus. For further details, see F. Dölger, Regesten der Kaiserurkunden des oströmischen Reiches von 565–1453: i, pt. 1, Regesten 565–867 (2nd edn., Munich, 2009), pp. 41–2. 41 LP, i. 321. There is no reference to this measure at the relevant place in Dölger’s Regesten. Possibly the pope was simply ensuring that existing imperial rules were applied in ecclesiastical contexts. 42 For the abolition of the requirement, see LP, i. 363.



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directly from Constantinople to Rome. At times in the earlier seventh century swifter approval was given by the exarch at Ravenna instead, but upon his own authority, and this later became the standard practice from 685 until the end of the exarchate.43

Aside from the issue of where imperial laws were sent, it should be stressed that most of the post‑codification imperial novels that became known in Italy in fact circulated as two sets of Justinianic materials, the Epitome of Julian and the Authenticum (discussed in the next section). These were created or assembled in the 550s in a teaching context that was not even originally Italian, and contained much legislation that was neither intended for nor obviously relevant to Italy (for example laws directed at specific provinces in the east). Justinian may at one time have imagined making an official collection of his novels to supplement his codification, but he never did so.44 Nor does the wording of the Pragmatic Sanction (Nov. App. VII.11) easily suggest that it was the post‑codification novels of the intervening period (534–54) that were to be published by edict, as opposed to any future legislation. Thus a mass promulgation of novels via Ravenna, as enacted by Valentinian III for those of Theodosius II, was not the means by which these sixth‑century novels became known in Italy. Indeed, it is notable that even the Pragmatic Sanction itself, as the most famous of imperial texts addressed to Italy, came to circulate only in a summary version appended to the Epitome of Julian.

Thus Ravenna was not the automatic or sole conduit for the promulgation or dissemination of imperial enactments. Certainly the exarch was key to enforcing the imperial will in Italy, but this was mainly a matter of religious policy, at least viewed through the distorting lens of the uneven surviving evidence, and we have little idea what was happening with secular legislation, which is poorly attested in the empire generally in the crisis‑ridden seventh century. One story illustrating the Ravenna court in action shows the exarch Theodore (678–87) recruiting a competent bilingual notarius, Johannicius, to handle the necessary correspondence with Constantinople, although this official of apparently rare capability was in due course poached by the emperor.45

43 For discussion of the complex chronology of imperial versus exarchal confirmations of papal elections in the 7th century, see J. Richards, The Popes and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages, 476–752 (1979), pp. 203–4. The last pope to impetrate a direct imperial mandate was Benedict II (684; after a wait of a year!), while the last to seek exarchal confirmation was Gregory III (731). 44 See C. Cordi 4 (Krüger, Codex Iustinianus, ed. minor, p. 4); Liebs, Jurisprudenz im spätantiken Italien, pp. 125–6. 45 Agnellus, LPR CXX; cf. 146. Johannicius’s later demise at the hands of Justinian II becomes a rather imaginative martyr story in the hands of Agnellus (J. M. Pizarro, Writing Ravenna: the Liber Pontificalis of Andreas Agnellus (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1995), pp. 75–6).



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The activity of Justinian, however, was in any case exceptional in its scope and intention and not necessarily the obvious touchstone for others’ legislative activity. Indeed, it was only in the dying days of exarchal Ravenna, in 741, that a significant piece of secular legislation was issued, the Ecloga of Leo III and Constantine V.46 It was specifically intended to make a revised, updated and philanthropic version (preferring punishment by mutilation rather than execution) of Justinianic law in summary form available in Greek. Although this work is well known from copies in the south Italian manuscript tradition, albeit rather late in date,47 it seems unlikely (though not impossible) that it was ever sent to northern Italy, or could have been effectively enforced or disseminated from Ravenna, especially at a time when Italian sentiment was hostile to imperial iconoclasm and the Lombards were also renewing their aggression.48 Indeed, even the southern diffusion might represent a later process, with the Ecloga only spreading there during the Macedonian resurgence of the ninth/tenth centuries.49 Only slight evidence exists that the work was ever rendered into Latin: the use of its heading at the beginning of a short eleventh‑century legal miscellany from Veroli known as the Lectio Legum.50 But there is little reason to think that any translation would have been an act of imperial Ravenna, rather than a much later response to Roman legal materials in Greek percolating up from the south.

It is not at all clear, therefore, that post‑Justinianic legislation, where it did have an impact in Italy, owed that impact to being issued from or via Ravenna. Indeed, the most iconic legal text, from the Ravennate point of view, was a grant issued not from Ravenna, but for Ravenna. This is the

46 Ecloga: das Gesetzbuch Leons III. und Konstantinos’ V., ed. L. Burgmann (Frankfurt, 1983); M. Humphreys, Law, Power, and Imperial Ideology in the Iconoclast Era, c.680-850 (Oxford, 2015), pp. 81–129. 47 For the manuscripts, see Burgmann, Ecloga, pp. 29–45; G. Cavallo, ‘La circolazione di testi giuridici in lingua greca nel mezzogiorno medievale’, in Scuole, diritto e società nel Mezzogiorno medievale d’Italia, ii, ed. M. Bellomo (Catania, 1987), pp. 87–136; L. Burgmann and others, Repertorium der Handschriften des byzantinischen Rechts, i: Die Handschriften des weltlichen Rechts (Nr. 1–327) (Frankfurt, 1995). The Ecloga travelled with various other texts and was also the basis for numerous later complex reworkings. 48 For the weakness of exarchal Ravenna in its final years, see S. Cosentino, Storia dell’Italia bizantina (VI–XI secolo). Da Giustiniano ai Normanni (Bologna, 2008), pp. 135–41. 49 V. M. Minale, ‘Sulla recezione dell’Ekloge isaurica nell’Italia bizantina’, HBI, ii (2012), pp. 37–49. 50 Burgmann, Ecloga, p. 160 reflected at F. Patetta, ‘Adnotationes Codicum Domini Justiniani (Summa Perusina)’, Bullettino dell’istituto di diritto romano, xii (Rome, 1900; repr. Florence, 2008), 294. On the Lectio, see briefly C. Radding and A. Ciaralli, The ‘Corpus Iuris Civilis’ in the Middle Ages: Manuscripts and Transmission from the Sixth Century to the Juristic Revival (Leiden, 2007), pp. 72–3. Note that the Lectio’s first chapter is taken without explicit attribution from Edictum Theoderici 57 (Vismara, Scritti, pp. 263–5).



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famous, if short‑lived, privilegium of autocephaly for the church of Ravenna issued by Constans II in 666,51 and probably depicted in a mosaic in S. Apollinare in Classe.52 Two features are notable for our purposes. First, Constans landed in southern Italy and never progressed further north than Rome (the last emperor ever to visit the city as sovereign, July 663).53 When Constans chose a western seat from which to govern, it was not Ravenna or even Rome, but Syracuse, strategically situated between Italy and Africa, and it was from Syracuse that the privilegium was issued.54 Second, this document is a perfect illustration of long‑standing late Roman imperial practice. It was issued on the basis of a relatio (request or referral) from the archbishop of Ravenna and a suggestio (draft) of the exarch of Italy, with the key intermediary being the vicedominus Reparatus (later also archbishop). The actual document will have been put together and written in Syracuse by the emperor’s officials, before receiving his autograph subscription (apparently the word ‘Fiat!’).55 However, it is likely that the relatio and suggestio between them provided the blueprint for the text and that the emperor was largely reflecting back to Ravenna what that city actually wanted.56 Thus this text issued from Syracuse was to a significant extent conceived in Ravenna.

51 O. Holder‑Egger, ‘Agnelli qui et Andreas liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis’, in MGH SRL (Hanover, 1878), pp. 350–1; Dölger, Regesten, p. 109. Agnellus, although aware of the grant (LPR, cx), seems only to have seen a later grant of Constantine IV, which he thought was that of Constans II (LPR, cxv), perhaps because the original privilegium was later surrendered to Rome (LP, i. 361). However, neither Roman nor Ravennate sources seem entirely trustworthy in their accounts of the struggles between them, and the details remain opaque. 52 The mosaic seems originally to have depicted Constans II granting the autocephaly, and to have been made on the orders of Reparatus after he became archbishop to celebrate his role. It was probably adapted subsequently to show a later grant of tax exemptions from Constantine IV, presumably to gloss over the fact that the autocephaly was revoked, which would explain Agnellus’s conflated interpretation that Reparatus gained tax exemptions (not autocephaly) from Constans II (see D. M. Deliyannis, Ravenna in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2010), pp. 271–3, 283–4; M. David, Eternal Ravenna: from the Etruscans to the Venetians (Milan, 2013), pp. 208–10). 53 For Constans’s visit, see LP, i. 343–4; A. J. Ekonomou, Byzantine Rome and the Greek Popes (Lanham, Md., 2007), pp. 171–7. 54 For the choice of Syracuse, see J. Howard‑Johnston, Witnesses to a World Crisis: Historians and Histories of the Middle East in the Seventh Century (Oxford, 2010), p. 486; W. Kaegi, Muslim Expansion and Byzantine Collapse in North Africa (Cambridge, 2010), pp. 168–9. 55 The emperor may also have written the ‘SANCIMVS’ in the middle of the document (Holder‑Egger, p. 351). 56 For this ‘reflecting back’, see Corcoran, ‘State correspondence’, pp. 190–2. Note also the similar case of Pope Agatho getting a divalis iussio in response to (and presumably written on the basis of ) a petition (LP, i. 354).



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With the fall of Ravenna in 751, it ceased to be a centre of government and also a source of or conduit for new legislation important for Roman law. Neither can the rulings of later kings and emperors, who passed through or resided temporarily (if sometimes frequently) in Ravenna, be considered of normative significance in this regard, even though the former imperial capital was seen as providing western emperors with an afterglow of Roman legitimacy, and coronations, synods and imperial hearings sometimes took place there.57

Ravenna, teacher of Roman lawAs the original source of the legal system, it is no surprise that Rome was the preeminent centre for the teaching of law in the late Roman west, where law students gained exemptions from public liabilities up to the age of 20 (CTh XIV.9.1), and that Rome was the city where salaried professors were at some point instituted.58 Legal training could, in theory, take place anywhere, and it certainly seems that law was taught in Gaul (for example at Narbonne), to those who did not have the resources or inclination to travel to Italy.59 Indeed, some legal works known from the late antique west tend to be associated with Gallic law schools, perhaps Autun.60 As regards Ravenna, however, there is no direct evidence of law teaching there. The Ravennate sermons of Peter Chrysologus, appointed bishop during the residence of Valentinian III and Galla Placidia (c.431), show considerable legal knowledge,61 but when and where it was acquired (his birth and early education were at nearby Imola) are unknown. The presumption is that

57 Thus note the Ottonian charters issued from Ravenna in the late 10th and early 11th centuries (MGH DD O II, nos. 241, 243, 314; DD O III, nos. 271, 272, 395, 398, 400, 402, 416, 419; DD Theophanu 2). For the Ottonian image of Ravenna, see R. Savigni, ‘Memoria urbis: l’immagine di Ravenna nella storiografia di età carolingia‑ottoniana’, in Ravenna da capitale imperiale a capitale esarcale (3 vols., Spoleto, 2005), ii. 615–701; D. Warner, ‘The representation of empire: Otto I at Ravenna’, in Representations of Power in Medieval Germany, 800–1500, ed. B. Weiler and S. MacLean (Leiden, 2006), pp. 132–4. 58 Liebs, ‘Roman Law’, in CAH XIV, 253; L. di Paola, ‘Insegnamento e diritto a Roma tra IV e VI secolo’, in Atti dell’Accademia Romanistica Costantiniana, xvi (Naples, 2007), 85–101. The later rulings of Athalaric and Justinian assume a pre‑existing practice of paying a salary to law teachers, probably similar to the practice in Constantinople from 425 (CTh XIV.9.3). 59 Liebs, ‘Roman Law’, in CAH XIV, 254–5; P. Riché, Enseignement du droit en Gaule du VIe au IXe siècle (Milan, 1965). 60 Thus both the Fragmenta Augustodunensia (commentary on Gaius (FIRA2 II, pp. 208–28)) and the Consultatio veteris cuiusdam iurisconsulti (FIRA2 II, pp. 594–613), both of which seem to be teaching texts. See D. Liebs, Ro mische Jurisprudenz in Gallien (2. bis 8. Jahrhundert) (Berlin, 2002), pp. 123, 138–41. 61 N. J. Ristuccia, ‘Law and legal documents in the sermons of Peter Chrysologus’, JLA, iv (2011), 124–56.



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for him any specific legal training, however elementary, was most likely acquired at Rome, as also in the case of Boethius, who makes use of several standard introductory textbooks for Roman law (the Institutes variously of Ulpian, Paulus and Gaius).62 Indeed, the addressee of Boethius’s Topica commentary, the advocate Patricius, studied in Rome and was eventually appointed quaestor at Ravenna by Theodahad in 534.63 It is also notable that when in 533 Athalaric urged the Senate at Rome to restore the salaries of the city’s publicly funded teachers, including the one for law (described as iuris expositor), he gives no indication that rival Italian law schools or teachers might have existed in Ravenna or elsewhere.64

In December 533 Justinian reorganized the empire’s law schools and their syllabi, suppressing all other schools except those of Rome and Constantinople (the regiae urbes) plus Beirut.65 Given that Italy was not yet under his control, the likely implication is that Rome is included to flatter imperial pride, and does not necessarily suggest that Justinian knew anything about the real situation in the Roman law school or of Athalaric’s recent intervention. As mentioned in the previous section, some scholars have believed that Justinian’s legal works were sent to the law school in Rome, or at least that the law teachers there might have been encouraged to acquire them, if only Justinian’s Institutes, which were a reworking of the standard textbook by Gaius.66 Indeed, it has even been speculated that Salaminius, the otherwise unknown man addressed last in the greeting to C. Omnem, was the official law teacher at Rome, presumably only appointed, or at least now salaried, following Athalaric’s recent letter.67 However, given the significant reforming imprint of Justinian’s own legislation, which is repeatedly noted throughout the Institutes, the idea of law teachers in Italy engaging with this material, even if they knew about it, seems highly unlikely. Only much later, in 554, did Justinian also provide for the re‑establishment of salaried law professors in Rome, just as he formalized the

62 Boethius, In Ciceronis Topica, II.3.14, II.4.19, III.5.28 (PL 64.1071, 1075, 1095); E. Stump, Boethius’s ‘In Ciceronis Topica’ (Ithaca, N.Y., 1988), p. 11; H. Chadwick, Boethius: the Consolations of Music, Logic, Theology and Philosophy (Oxford, 1981), p. 119. 63 PLRE II ‘Patricius 12’; Cassiodorus, Variae x. 6–7. Patricius is mentioned in the proem to each of the Topica commentary’s six books, except for Bk III (PL 64.1039, 1063, 1107, 1129, 1167). 64 Cassiodorus, Variae ix. 21; Liebs, Jurisprudenz im spätantiken Italien, pp. 122–3. 65 C. Omnem 7 (T. Mommsen, Corpus Iuris Civilis, i: Digesta (Berlin, 1872), p. XVI). 66 Liebs, Jurisprudenz im spätantiken Italien, p. 125. 67 E.g. C. G. Mor, Scritti di storia giuridica altomedievale (Pisa, 1977), pp. 87, 93. PLRE IIIB ‘Salaminius’ tentatively suggests Beirut. Or perhaps he was a descendant or relative of the ecclesiastical historian, Sozomen (i.e., Salaminius Hermias Sozomenus), who had been a trained lawyer in Constantinople under Theodosius II.



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status of his codification in Italy.68 But, given that it is far from certain that even this did in fact happen, it is all the harder to suppose that a law school or formal law‑teaching was established in Ravenna.

It is perhaps also noteworthy that Cassiodorus, who had had such extensive engagement with legal and legislative issues during his periods in office at Ravenna, had attempted while still praetorian prefect there to establish a Christian school in Rome instead with Pope Agapetus (c.536), a sign that Rome was the default location for such formal establishments.69 Later, in his post‑reconquest reborn monastic identity, Cassiodorus did not include any legal texts in his secular curriculum (Book II of his Institutes) in setting out his educational plan for Vivarium. Rhetoric, seen as a tool for use in legal dispute, is covered extensively,70 but Roman substantive law is not considered important. Justinian’s Institutes have no place, even if legal texts probably formed part of the library at Vivarium.71

A few legal texts are at least plausibly attributable to Italy in the sixth and early seventh centuries. These show engagement with Justinianic legal materials and are often used to demonstrate the existence of some teaching in Rome at least during this period.72 They generally survive in the form of summaries or scholia, which seem to reflect the teaching methods or texts of the antecessores (law professors). While some of these most likely derive directly or indirectly from Constantinopolitan materials (for example the

68 Justinian, Nov. App. VII.22. 69 Institutiones divinarum et saecularum litterarum, i. para. 1; Bjornlie, Politics and Tradition, p. 15. For possible links between Cassiodorus and law schools, see F. de Marini Avonzo, ‘Sulle tracce della scuola di Roma nel VI secolo’, Minima epigraphica et papyrologica, ix (2006), 411–14. She somewhat speculatively explores a Cassiodoran connection to a manipulated text of Paul at Digest XXXII.78, a rather closer relationship between Italian and Constantinopolitan jurisprudence than might be expected. 70 See Cassiodorus, Inst. II.pr.4 and II.2. 71 The Latin ecclesiastical history sponsored by Cassiodorus certainly used the Justinian Code: Cassiodorus/Epiphanius, Historia Ecclesiastica Tripartita IX.7 and 40 = CJ I.1.1 and IX.47.20 respectively. See F. de Marini Avonzo, ‘Due citazioni del Codex Iustinianus nella Historia Tripartita di Cassiodoro’, in Scritti per il XL della morte di P.E. Bensa (Milan 1969), pp. 95–106 (repr. in Dall’impero cristiano al medioevo: Studi sul diritto tardoantico (Goldbach, 2001), pp. 125–34). 72 The fullest discussion is Liebs, Jurisprudenz im spätantiken Italien, pp. 195–282, who is the most enthusiastic proponent of an active Roman law school, but some alternative datings and interpretations of key texts can be found in Radding and Ciaralli, The Corpus Iuris Civilis, pp. 38–44, which are more sceptical. For a new, balanced assessment of the evidence, see now L. Loschiavo, ‘Insegnamento del diritto e cultura giuridica a Roma da Teoderico a Carlo Magno’, in Ravenna Capitale. Permanenze del mondo giuridico romano in Occidente nei secoli V–VIII, ed. G. Bassanelli Sommariva and others (Santarcangelo di Romagna, 2014), pp. 9–50.



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scholia to the Turin Institutes73 and the Verona Code,74 the paratitla to the Epitome of Julian75), others may have been created in Italy, and both types could have been used to aid teaching and been further adapted. Certainly such texts ended up being assembled and copied in ways that suited the Italian context. This applies to the various works which came to travel with the Epitome of Julian, which originated as a Latin lecture course on the (mostly Greek) novels taught at Constantinople in the 550s.76 However, it became the main way in which the novels were known in the early medieval west. Two alternative appendices of miscellaneous items were created to accompany the Epitome.77 Indeed, it is ‘Appendix A’ that transmits the Pragmatic Sanction of 554, or at least the summary version of the original constitution that this appears to be, which was surely created in Italy.78 It is a similar story with the Authenticum, comprising, as has become known, a version of Justinian’s novels made up of some Latin originals but mostly Latin student‑crib translations from the Greek.79 The most likely view is that it was put together in its early medieval form in Italy in the 560s, although making use of a pre‑existing Constantinopolitan teaching collection. It originally consisted of Greek text with interlinear Latin translation (except for those novels originally in Latin), that was designed to make Greek constitutions more accessible to Latin‑speaking pupils.80 That this was done in Rome is

73 The dating of these scholia in the manuscripts is much disputed, but there is certainly a 6th‑century layer (see Liebs, Jurisprudenz im spätantiken Italien, pp. 195–220; G. Falcone,‘I prestiti dalla Parafrasi di Teofilo nella cd. Glossa Torinese alle Istituzioni’, Studia et Documenta Historiae et Iuris, lxii (1996), 255–86; Radding and Ciaralli, The Corpus Iuris Civilis, pp. 114–17). 74 Published by C. E. Zachariä von Lingenthal, ‘Die griechischen Scholien der rescribirten Handschrift des Codex in der Bibliothek des Domcapitels zu Verona’, Zeitschrift für geschichtliche Rechtswissenschaft, xv (1850), 90–132 (repr. in Kleine Schriften zur römischen und byzantinischen Rechtsgeschichte (Leipzig, 1973), pp. 313–59); discussed by Liebs, ‘The Greek scholia of the Justinian Code manuscript in Verona compared with the Latin glosses of the one in Pistoia’, in Roman Law in Lombard and Carolingian Europe, ed. M. Crawford and B. Salway (forthcoming). 75 N. van der Wal, ‘Die Paratitla zur Epitome Iuliani’, Subseciva Groningana, ii (1985), 93–137; Liebs, Jurisprudenz im spätantiken Italien, pp. 246–64; W. Kaiser, Die Epitome Iuliani: Beiträge zum römischen Recht im frühen Mittelalter und zum byzantinischen Rechtsunterricht (Frankfurt, 2004), pp. 281–307. 76 Kaiser, Die Epitome Iuliani, is an exhaustive account of the Epitome both east and west. 77 Their contents are summarized at Kaiser, Die Epitome Iuliani, pp. 15–17. 78 Liebs, Jurisprudenz im spätantiken Italien, p. 125; Kaiser, Die Epitome Iuliani, pp. 348–9. 79 The most recent full text reconstruction is still that of G. E. Heimbach, Authenticum (2 vols., Leipzig, 1846–51). 80 For the shape of the late antique Authenticum, see the crucial study by L. Loschiavo, ‘Il codex graecus e le origini del Liber authenticorum’, Zeitschrift der Savigny Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: romanistische Abteilung, cxxvii (2010), 115–71. In the empire (at



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merely a guess based on its being the most likely locus for a continuing law school, which would have required such a work.81 But any association with Ravenna, as is also often made, is even more of a guess.82 However, it should be observed that the Authenticum was not the sole source of Latin versions of the novels. Other translations and summaries circulated in Italy and they do not all need to have been made in the same place.83

The same can be said of the Summa Perusina, which survives in an early eleventh‑century manuscript and comprises a catena of comments upon the Justinian Code, deriving ultimately from seventh‑century Italian glosses to a Code manuscript.84 The comments are not obviously related to formal law‑school teaching, and the frequent misunderstandings suggest that legal learning has now fallen away considerably, as is also found with some of the later summaries associated with the Epitome of Julian.85 Further, the bilingual nature of much sixth‑century normative law has vanished, since there is no engagement with the Greek texts in the Code, which are almost entirely ignored.86 No wonder the exarch Theodore prized the notarius Johannicius. The fact that the Summa, as we know it, seems to have come into active use at Rome in the late tenth century (most famously being cited decisively to settle a case heard there before the emperor Otto III in December 999)87 lends credibility to the belief that this material at least should properly be associated with Rome, although the text contains no

Constantinople and Beirut), most equivalent teaching materials were the other way round, designed to help Greek‑speaking students cope with Latin legal texts, although the Epitome of Julian shows that the need for similar Latin materials was not confined to Italy. 81 E.g., Loschiavo, ‘Il codex graecus’, p. 148. 82 E.g., F. Wieacker, Römische Rechtsgeschichte, ii, ed. J. G. Wolf (Munich, 2006), p. 323; M. Ascheri, The Laws of Late Medieval Italy (1000–1500): Foundations for a European Legal System (Leiden, 2013), p. 15. 83 In addition to the varied material in the two Julianic Appendices (Kaiser, Die Epitome Iuliani, pp. 15–17), note also Nov. 90 = Auth. 90 as known to Gregory the Great (Reg. XIII.49[50]; CCSL 140A, pp. 417–18; Martyn, The Letters of Gregory the Great, iii. 866); Nov. 5 = Auth. 5 from the Sacra Privilegia Concilii Byzaceni, ch. 6 (W. Kaiser, Authentizität und Geltung spätantiker Kaisergesetze (Munich, 2007), pp. 392–403); Nov. 123.pr. (Heimbach, Authenticum, ii. 1149; Kaiser, Die Epitome Iuliani, p. 423 n. 36). 84 Patetta, Adnotationes Codicum Domini Justiniani = BIDR 12 (Rome, 1900); Radding and Ciaralli, The Corpus Iuris Civilis, pp. 42–3, 69–70. 85 For this negative assessment of both the Summa Perusina and some of the Julianic materials, see Kaiser, Die Epitome Iuliani, pp. 325–46 and Radding and Ciaralli, The Corpus Iuris Civilis, pp. 41–4. 86 Their existence is occasionally noted (e.g., SP I.29, III.2.2, III.9, IV.59.1, VI.48), and some Greek words may have been transcribed to judge by the vestige in SP VI.38.3. 87 MGH DD O III no. 339 quoting SP VII.43.8–9.



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indubitable proof of this.88 Ravenna is mentioned nowhere. Certainly, for neither the Summa nor any of the legal materials mentioned above is there any positive indication of an association with Ravenna.

This is not to say that copying of legal texts did not take place in Ravenna. As suggested above, the constitutionarii may have been based in the city to make copies of the Theodosian Code. It is reasonable to suggest that it was precisely their location in Ravenna that created the circumstances necessitating their intervention to protect their monopoly from being broken at Rome, where there was perhaps high demand from teachers or students for copies of the new corpus. There is little direct evidence of legal works associated with teaching the Code, but they certainly existed.89 Where exactly the surviving Code manuscripts were copied is not entirely certain, but, while they are generally thought to be Italian, none can be associated with Ravenna.90

The same can be said for the early manuscripts of the Justinianic codification. Many of those which survive in an Italian context, generally only as fragments, were probably not written in Italy, but imported from Constantinople, and for those probably written in Italy (for example the Verona Institutes91 and the Naples Digest92), a Ravennate origin can only be surmised.93 The most plausible candidate is perhaps the Pommersfeld Digest fragment (CLA III 1351), which, although probably written in the east, could well have been brought to and used in Ravenna, to judge by its shared origin with the other Pommersfeld papyri. These contain both Latin acta and Greek formulae and are seen to fit the scenario well of having been created or at least assembled and used in a bilingual seat of government.94

88 Possibly indicated by ‘in hac urbe’ (sc. Constantinople) of CJ VI.23.18 becoming ‘in urbe Roma’ at SP VI.23.18. 89 See the so‑called Summaria Antiqua from Vaticanus Reg. Lat. 886, ed. B. Sirks (Amsterdam, 1996). From the papyri, see F. Mitthof, ‘Neue Evidenz zur Verbreitung juristischer Fachliteratur im spätantiken Ägypten: Zwei Bearbeitungen des Codex Theodosianus’, in Symposion 2003: Vortrage zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte, ed. H.‑A. Rupprecht (Vienna, 2006), pp. 415–22. 90 For the origins of the Theodosianus manuscripts, see B. Salway, ‘The publication of the Theodosian Code and transmission of its texts: some observations’, in Sociéte, économie, administration dans le Code Théodosien, ed. P. Jaillette and S. Crogiez‑Pétrequin (Villeneuve d’Ascq, 2012), pp. 21–61. 91 Verona Bibl. Cap. XXXVIII(36) = CLA IV 495; F. Macino, Sulle tracce delle Istituzioni di Giustiniano nell’alto Medioevo (Vatican City, 2008), p. 29. 92 Naples Bibl. Naz. IV.A.8 = CLA III 402. 93 See the discussion by B. Stolte, ‘Some thoughts on the early history of the Digest text’, Subseciva Groningana, vi (1999), 103–19, and ‘Diritto romano e diritto bizantino: alcune osservazioni sul ruolo dell’Italia nella trasmissione del diritto giustinianeo’, in HBI, ii (2012), 23–36. 94 P. Ital. II.59 (ChLA XII.547; on the verso is CLA III 1349); B. Sirks and others, Ein Frühbyzantinisches Szenario für die Amtswechslung in der Sitonie: die griechischen Papyri aus Pommersfelden (Munich, 1996) (hereafter PPG), pp. 17–19, 25–9.



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Again, the occasional suggestion of Ravenna as the place of assembly of the diverse texts, including legal material, in the corpora of the agrimensores, one of which (Vat. Pal. Lat. 1564) contains selections from the Theodosian Code, the novels of Theodosius II and the Digest, is also just a guess, although the collections are clearly Italian.95

Copying of books certainly took place in Ravenna, as witnessed by a subscription to Macrobius’s Saturnalia by Symmachus, Boethius’s father‑in‑law.96 There is also evidence of at least one book dealer and copyist there in the sixth century (Viliaric).97 Most significantly, several Latin translations of Greek medical works (Galen, Oribasius and treatises from the Hippocratic corpus) are reasonably attributable to sixth‑century Ravenna and, while the resultant Ravenna ‘medical school’ may still be something of a modern scholarly construct, this makes by far the most coherent case for the city as an intellectual centre, producing texts in a bilingual environment.98 For legal material, however, all is doubt and guess. Indeed, given the dubious story of libri legales travelling from Ravenna to Bologna with which this chapter began, it is worth noting that the similar story of the Codex Florentinus of the Digest travelling south to north from Amalfi to Pisa in the twelfth century is the more plausible, whether or not true.99

This is not to say that no legal training took place in early medieval Ravenna, but, rather than being associated with any formal law‑school‑type education, it was more likely to be tied in to practice, with future forenses or tabelliones learning from older mentors, often their fathers (of which more in the next section).100 Lack of evidence, however, means that

95 W. Kaiser, ‘Spätantike Rechtstexte in agrimensorischen Sammlungen’, Zeitschrift der Savigny Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: romanistische Abteilung, cxxx (2013), 278, 296. 96 A. Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome (New York, 2011), pp. 235–6. 97 Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, p. 438. Viliaric is known from a subscription to Orosius Bk. V in MS. Laur. 65.1 = CLA III 298; and as ‘bokareis’ in P. Ital. II.34 [ChLA XX 704], l. 136 (dated 551). See also J.‑O. Tjäder, P. Ital., ii (Stockholm, 1982), pp. 95–6; R. Mathisen, ‘Barbarian “Arian” clergy, church organization, and church practices’, in Arianism: Roman Heresy and Barbarian Creed, ed. G. Berndt and R. Steinacher (Farnham, 2014), pp. 180–1. 98 D. R. Langslow, The Latin Alexander Trallianus: the Text and Transmission of a Late Latin Medical Book (2006), p. 36; L. Totelin, Hippocratic Recipes: Oral and Written Transmission of Pharmacological Knowledge in Fifth- and Fourth-Century Greece (Leiden, 2009), p. 279. 99 On the Codex Florentinus, see D. Baldi, ‘Il Codex Florentinus del Digesto e il “Fondo Pandette” della Biblioteca Laurenziana’, Segno e testo, viii (2010), 99–186 (with the Amalfi/Pisa story at p. 124). The presence of Beneventan script annotations supports the notion of a south Italian stage in the manuscript’s life (Baldi, pp. 122–3). 100 E.g., F. Santoni, ‘Ravenna: tabellioni e notai’, in HBI, i (2011), 125–31, noting palaeographical connections between the hands of related tabelliones of the late 9th and 10th centuries.



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little more can be said. Peter Damian in a famous letter of 1046 refers,101 in a rather polemical passage, to persons (described as sapientes) at Ravenna, who seem to be severally teachers and lawyers (iudices), although not necessarily specifically teachers of law. They rely upon Justinian’s Institutes to support the calculations of consanguinity of which Peter disapproves.102 Certainly the secular law to which Peter routinely refers, and which he even quotes verbatim, is Justinianic, even if dismissed as being the law of ‘Iustinianus vester’, since he by contrast privileges biblical and canonical authorities.103 Peter is both late and hardly intending to be precise, and so is of no help in identifying who the legally knowledgeable in early medieval Ravenna were or how they acquired their knowledge. If the institutiones of the late tenth‑century arengas noted below are generously interpreted as denoting the Institutes of Justinian (although such a specific meaning seems unlikely), we might see this as a longer‑standing tradition of a few of the educated elite having done some basic legal reading, even perhaps as a Boethius might have done 500 years earlier. This is hardly overpowering evidence, though, of an established Ravenna law‑school and formal teaching.

Ravenna, user of Roman lawWhen it comes to the use of Roman law, we are rather better informed because of the survival of the Ravenna papyri, which number over sixty in all and date between the mid fifth and mid eighth centuries, although they mostly cluster in the sixth century.104 The term ‘Ravenna papyri’ needs some qualification, since it essentially subsumes all surviving Italian non‑literary papyri of the late antique period, which are thereby presumed either to have been written in Ravenna, or else to have ended

101 Peter Damian, Epist. 19, ed. K. Reindel, MGH Briefe IV.1 (Munich, 1983), pp. 179–99; cf. analogy to acquisition of legal knowledge at Epist. 152, MGH Briefe IV.4 (Munich, 1993), p. 8. Cf. Michael Gledhill in this volume. 102 Radding and Ciaralli, The Corpus Iuris Civilis, pp. 74–6, sceptical; contrast R. G. Witt, The Two Latin Cultures and the Foundation of Renaissance Humanism in Medieval Italy (Cambridge, 2012), p. 141. 103 Peter Damian, Epist. 19, MGH Briefe IV.1, p. 190; cf. Sermo 1 (PL 144.511). 104 Generally cited from the versions published by Tjäder in P. Ital. I and II, now with new editions in ChLA (esp. vols. XX–XXII and XXIX). Texts not previously in P. Ital. are ChLA XXII.722 and XXIX.877 (both mid 8th century) and R. P. Salomons and others, ‘Completio of a deed of donation’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, cxxiii (1998), 151–7 (mid 6th century). Note also the rediscovered fragment now at ChLA XLV.1349. A newly identified fragment is due to be published by A. Ghignoli and T. de Robertis, ‘Un nuovo papiro latino del VI secolo’, in De la herencia romana a la procesal castellana. Diez siglos de cursividad (Seville, forthcoming).



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up archived there in ecclesiastical repositories (although few can be found there today), even when provenance cannot be definitively established.105 Papyrus continued in common use at Ravenna up to the ninth century, when it was superseded by parchment and soon disappeared.106 The range of late antique documents preserved is mostly legal, including sales, donations, wills, leases and inventories. There are few documents for the later seventh and eighth centuries, but, from the ninth century, they become more frequent and enable some assessment of continuity and change in legal formats.

Another point needs to be made. We cannot easily assume that Ravenna was always or necessarily typical of sixth‑century Italy, let alone the empire in general. Similar issues are also usually raised for the only other region possessing documents for this period, Egypt.107 Of course, for the imperial core in Constantinople there are no surviving documents for comparison (beyond possible Constantinopolitan strays in Egypt), but only extensive normative texts. How quickly or how far legislation from the centre is reflected (if at all) in a particular location will vary, but documents from widely separated places, while having local or regional differences, will also reveal their shared normative background.

The texts in the papyri are all in Latin, as would be expected for Roman legal texts in Italy, although the orthography and syntax can be quite irregular, becoming more so over time. Some reflection of the multilingual environment of Ostrogothic and Byzantine Italy can be seen through the occasional use in subscriptions of Gothic (if perhaps only as ossified

105 See Salomons, ‘Completio’, p. 152; cf. F. Santoni, ‘I papiri di Ravenna: gesta municipalia e procedure di insinuazione’, in HBI, i (2011), 12. Note that P. Ital. I.17 is entirely independent of Ravenna, as deriving from a Roman text copied into a 9th‑century inscription in S. Maria Maggiore (C. Carbonetti Vendittelli, ‘Il sistema documentario romano tra VII e XI secolo’, in HBI, i (2011), 89 n. 6). 106 C. Carbonetti Vendittelli, ‘I supporti scrittorii della documentazione: l’uso del papiro’, in HBI, i (2011), 33–6. The few 9th‑century papyri are: ChLA2 LV.1, 3, 5, 6, 7; Florence Arch. di Stato P. Lat. 3 (CR VIII/IX, no. 20; not in ChLA2); Bibliothèque Nationale, Parisinus. Lat. 8843 (CR VIII/IX, no. 15; Chartes originales antérieures à 1121 conservées en France, no. 1764 <http://www.cn‑telma.fr/originaux/charte1764/>, this last giving an implausible 10th‑century date), but perhaps even 8th‑century (F. Santoni, pers. comment). For editions of all 8th‑/9th‑century texts, the most convenient source is CR VIII/IX, but most of the Ravenna originals are published to their best advantage in ChLA2 LIV–LV. 107 See J. Beaucamp, ‘L’histoire du droit byzantin face à la papyrologie juridique: bilan et perspectives’, Fontes Minores, xi, ed. L. Burgmann (Frankfurt, 2005), 5–55, and ‘Byzantine Egypt and imperial law’, in Egypt in the Byzantine World, 300–700, ed. R. Bagnall (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 271–87.



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formulae)108 or of Latin written in Greek script.109 No documents survive in Greek.110

The key virtue of the papyri is that they demonstrate a continuing vitality in the use of documents in early medieval Ravenna, and the importance placed on making sure that documentary evidence of transactions existed, especially by means of careful registration with the local curia. These acts of registration have been much studied recently and show that a single transaction would result in multiple documentary versions in different locations: the original deed, plus a copy with its registration procedure, archived in the municipal acta, and further copies of this registration kept by one or more of the interested parties.111 Indeed, sometimes the documents are re‑registered.112 Although such registration was part of imperial policy, especially in relation to knowing whom to tax, it was also important for individuals and institutions not just for additional proof in defending title to property, especially in the disturbed conditions of the reconquest (those of Gothic descent feeling particularly vulnerable),113 but also in denying title against tax claims. While documentary formats of curial registration are found in Merovingian and Carolingian Gaul,114 it is Ravenna that most clearly shows this as a still living and functioning process in the sixth century. It is also important to point out that, as a result of later archiving of copies at Ravenna, some of the original registrations were carried out by curiae other than that of Ravenna (for example Syracuse [489], Rieti [557]).115 The

108 Most markedly by some members of the Arian clergy of S. Anastasia (P. Ital. II.34 ll. 88–91, 94–7, 126–9, 136–9). See discussion by Amory, People and Identity, pp. 251–6, and G. Berndt and R. Steinacher, ‘The ecclesia legis Gothorum and the role of “Arianism” in Ostrogothic Italy’, in Arianism (Farnham, 2014), pp. 219–29. 109 E.g., P. Ital. I.18–19 (ChLA.XX.718) ll. B18–28; P. Ital. II.37 (ChLA XX.716) ll. 78–83. For some examples of the opposite in Egypt (Greek in Latin script), see P. Oxy. I 126 l. 31, LXVI 4536 l. 37 and LXX 4794 l. 24. 110 But note references to documents in Greek at P. Ital. II.47–8 [ChLA XXV.792, XXIX.870] ll. A5, B16. 111 See especially Santoni, ‘I papiri di Ravenna’, in HBI, i (2011), 9–32; N. Everett, ‘Lay documents and archives in early medieval Spain and Italy, c.400–700’, in Documentary Culture and the Laity in the Early Middle Ages, ed. W. Brown and others (Cambridge, 2013), pp. 63–94. 112 P. Ital. I.4–5 (ChLA XVII.653 and XXIX.878); Everett, ‘Lay documents’, pp. 76–7. 113 See Cosentino, ch. 6 in this volume; Everett, ‘Lay documents’, pp. 81–2; S. Tarozzi, ‘La petitio tutoris faciendi specialis di Gundihild, P. Ital. I, 7’, in Ravenna Capitale: territorialità e personalità, compresenza di diversi pianti normativi (Santarcangelo di Romagna, 2013), pp. 107–26. 114 W. Brown, ‘The gesta municipalia and the public validation of documents in Frankish Europe’, in Documentary Culture and the Laity in the Early Middle Ages, ed. W. Brown and others (Cambridge, 2013), pp. 95–124. 115 Syracuse: P. Ital. I 10–11A‑B = ChLA XX.703 and XLV.1331; Rieti: P. Ital. I.7 = ChLA XX.712; cf. the licentia allegandi at Rome, c.600 (P. Ital. I.17 ll. 3–5).



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registration process, however, does not seem to have survived as a genuine procedure beyond the seventh century, the latest datable example being 625 (P. Ital. I.21 [ChLA XXII.720]).116

One key question for Roman law in Ravenna is when or how Justinianic law, whether his codification or his novels, can be seen reflected in the papyri. In the pre‑Justinian texts, while an already obsolete formula such as that for mancipatio still appears as a relic,117 other changes can be seen occurring over time, even on the cusp of the capture of Ravenna.118 Unfortunately, there is then a gap in clearly dated papyri after 541 until the early 550s. From then on, however, the texts do clearly reflect innovative Justinianic legislation. Three matters deserve particular note. First is the application of Justinian’s Novel 47 of August 537, which ordained the inclusion in formal dating clauses of the emperor’s regnal year in addition to the consular year. This is routinely reflected in the documents of reconquest Ravenna, and indeed it would be a surprise if formal documents in the administrative capital of Italy had not complied with this practice.119 The reform is also widely reflected elsewhere, in inscribed documents across the empire and in the Egyptian papyri.120 The second significant measure is the introduction under Novel 44 (again of August 537) of rules for an eschatocol of completion by tabelliones, guaranteeing the document’s content, which states that the tabellio has completed and handed over the duly witnessed and confirmed document. In the most standard form, the subscriptions of the parties and witnesses immediately precede the completio of the tabellio, while in due course a summary note of the witnesses’ names is added (usually on

116 The licentia allegandi does appear, perhaps as a formulaic fossil, in a later text of 767 (CR VIII/IX, no. 4 p. 11). 117 P. Ital. II.30 = ChLA XX.706 (539); P.†8 (538) (Marini 118) at Tjäder, Nichtliterarischen lateinischen Papyri II, pp. 43–5. Empty post‑Justinian occurrences of the term exist, the latest in 625 (P. Ital. I.21 (ChLA XXII.720)). Formal mancipatio was obsolete long before Justinian, although he abolished the technical distinction between res mancipi and nec mancipi (CJ VII.31.1.5 (531)). See M. Nowak, ‘Mancipatio and its life in late‑Roman law’, Journal of Juristic Papyrology, xli (2011), 103–22. 118 J.‑O. Tjäder, ‘Alcune osservazioni sulla prassi documentaria a Ravenna nel VI secolo’, in Il mondo del diritto nell’epoca giustinianea: caratteri e problematiche, ed. G. G. Archi (Ravenna, 1985), pp. 26–9. 119 Tjäder, Nichtliterarischen lateinischen Papyri II, pp. 7–8 and ‘Alcune osservazioni’, p. 31. See, for instance, P. Ital. I.4–5 (ChLA XVII.653) ll. BVI.12–13 (552); I.13 (ChLA XXIX.880) ll. 58–59 (553); P. Ital. II.35 (ChLA III.181) l. 1 (572); II.37 (ChLA XXI.716) l. 1 (591); II.49 (ChLA XXIX.885) l. 7 (557); cf. II.38–41 (ChLA XXIX.880) l. 45 (616/19). 120 D. Feissel, ‘La réforme chronologique de 537 et son application dans l’épigraphie grecque’, Ktéma, xviii (1993), 171–87 (repr. in Documents, droit, diplomatique de l’empire romain tardif (Paris, 2010), pp. 503–24); R. Bagnall and K. Worp, Chronological Systems of Byzantine Egypt (2nd edn., Leiden, 2004), pp. 45–54, 252–71.



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the dorse). This is the most typical and long‑lasting feature marking out Ravenna’s documents in early medieval Italy,121 although also attested in contemporary Egypt.122 A third evident change, which follows a ruling inserted in the Justinian Code (VIII.53.28), was the abolition of the need for physical delivery (traditio) in cases of sale, by means of a retention of a usufruct (enjoyment of use) for a nominal period. This was an extension by interpolation into an older rule from the Theodosian Code (VIII.12.9), which had already allowed this type of fictitious usufruct in the giving of donations.123 The adoption of this practice is a step on the way to charters of sale or donation becoming the means of delivery in themselves, rather than being witnesses to or records of such acts. These three features are attested in the papyri in the early 550s, but each appears before 554 and so cannot be connected to the promulgation of the Pragmatic Sanction.

A clause found in only one document of 551 seems to reflect pre‑Justinian practice. This is the presence of a stipulation clause invoking the Lex Aquilia (not the Lex Aquilia, but in fact an Aquilian stipulation; that is, a comprehensive novation that bundles up existing obligations into a single new undertaking) to make the legal act unshakeably firm.124 Two features of this are important. First, it differs in wording from other stipulation clauses, which reflect more or less the oral question‑and‑answer format of the classical stipulatio, found elsewhere in the Italian papyri,125 as also in not dissimilar forms in contemporary documents in

121 Tjäder, ‘Alcune osservazioni’, p. 31–4; Salomons, ‘Completio’. The earliest example dates to 553 (P. Ital. I.13 [ChLA XXIX.880] ll. 82–3). 122 E.g., P. Oxy. LVIII. 3952 (c.610); P. Budge (A. A. Schiller, ‘The Budge Papyrus of Columbia University’, Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, vii (1968), 79–118; rev. Koptisches Sammelbuch I 36) ll. 86, 105, 203 (646). See S. Kovarik, ‘Die byzantinische Tabellionenurkunde in Ägypten’, in Quellen zur byzantinischen Rechtspraxis, ed. C. Gastgeber (Vienna, 2010), pp. 27–38. 123 Tjäder, Nichtliterarischen lateinischen Papyri II, pp. 37–8; and ‘Alcune osservazioni’, p. 41; P. Ital. I.13 (553) and 20 (c.600); P. Ital. II.35–38/41 (four documents dating between 572 and 619); cf. a similar text, dated at Rome in 587, known only from an early modern copy and probably a forgery, but reflecting a genuine 6th‑century format (MS. Vaticanus Lat. 5617 fos. 257r–258v; Il regesto del monastero dei Ss. Andrea e Gregorio ad Clivum Scaurum, ed. A. Bartola (Rome, 2003) ii, pt. 1, 5, but more accessible in Gregorii I Papae Registrum Epistolarum II, ed L. Hartmann (MGH Epistolae II (Hanover, 1899)), p. 438). 124 P. Ital. II.34 (ChLA XX.704) ll. 57–8. There is a unique reference here to a Lex Nerviana, otherwise unattested, perhaps a device of one of the jurists called Nerva, by analogy with the Aquilian stipulation associated with the late Republican jurist Aquilius Gallus (see R. Rodríguez López, ‘In solutum cessionis venditionisque documentum (consideraciones sobre el P. 34 de Ravenna)’, Revue internationale des droits de l’antiquité , 3rd ser., xlv (1998), 558). 125 E.g., P. Ital. II.30 (ChLA XX.706) ll. 71–73 (539); II.31 (ChLA XX.707) I.12–13 (540); II.33 (ChLA XXV.793) l. 6 (541).



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Greek from Egypt.126 Second, it is cognate with a clause found in a Spanish donation of the same year,127 and so must already have been common, probably from the fifth century, in order to appear in now widely separate jurisdictions. Although referred to in an eastern law of 381, this format presumably became widely known in the west only through that law’s inclusion in the Theodosian Code (although dropped from the Breviary in 506).128 The clause becomes common in documents and formulae of the Frankish kingdoms and, although often mangled and seldom retaining the Aquilian reference,129 is typical of those areas where the Justinianic codification did not spread.130 By contrast, this particular clause appears uniquely here within the Ravenna papyri and is absent from the city’s later charter tradition, but not because this pre‑Justinian clause is exactly un‑Justinianic. Other stipulation clauses survive and continue to be echoed in Ravenna charters.131 Rather, because its core function in other regions was to bestow ‘firmitas’ on a document, this format of stipulation clause was probably, in Ravennate minds, better served by the authoritative completio of the tabelliones.

A contrasting example is the use in the papyri from c.600 of clauses whereby women explicitly reject the protection of the Senatusconsultum Velleianum and other legal privileges available only to their sex.132 The Senatusconsultum was a measure of the mid first century A.D. which impeded the suing of women, who assumed liabilities for third parties.133 It reflected a standard view of ‘womanly weakness’ (infirmitas or imbecillitas sexus) in matters of law, so that even ignorance of the law, not usually a

126 D. Simon, Studien zur Praxis der Stipulationsklausel (Munich, 1964), pp. 91–8. 127 S. Corcoran, ‘The donation and will of Vincent of Huesca’, Antiquité Tardive, xi (2003), 219; cf. Formulae Visigothicae, vi (Formulae Merowingici et Karolini aevi, ed. K. Zeumer (MGH Legum sectio V (Hanover, 1886), p. 578). 128 CTh II.9.2, edited into CJ II.4.40. 129 Compared to the common ‘firmitas stipulatione subnixa’ part of the clause, the Aquilian reference is always rare – e.g., Form. Andecavenses 37 and Form. Turonenses 17 (Zeumer, Formulae, pp. 17 and 145); ChLA I.40 and 44 (St. Gall, 744). 130 Simon, Studien, pp. 33–40; M. Lupoi, The Origins of the European Legal Order (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 283–93. 131 E.g., P. Ital. II.35 (ChLA III.181) ll. 59–60 (572); 10th‑century examples standardized as ‘sub stipulatione et sponsione’ (e.g., CR X, ii, no. 120 p. 88 (965), no. 176 p. 241 (973), no. 184, p. 263 (974)). 132 P. Ital. I.20 (ChLA XXI.717) ll. 49–52 (c.600); P. Ital. II.56 (ChLA IV.232, IX.400) ll. 1–3 (613/41). 133 J. Crook, ‘Feminine inadequacy and the senatusconsultum Velleianum’, in The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives, ed. B. Rawson (1986), pp. 83–92; N. Benke, ‘Gender and the Roman law of obligations’, in Obligations in Roman Law: Past, Present, and Future, ed. T. McGinn (Ann Arbor, Mich., 2012), pp. 228–30.



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legal defence, was sometimes excused. This measure was still present in the Justinianic codification, although the rules as to how and when a woman could invoke it (always her choice) were highly complex.134 There were also circumstances, however, when women had formally to renounce the protection of the decree.135 The Ravenna texts are not concerned with the type of third‑party obligations originally envisaged under the law. Either they have taken over a clause from a document where it was relevant, or they reflect a general unease that the invocation of some feminine exception might threaten the security of a legal transaction. Thus the voluntary renunciation of the Senatusconsultum or other ‘womanly weakness’ remedies was a precautionary safeguard for the other parties and can be seen as a logical extension of the renunciations already provided for in Justinianic legislation. This development is not confined to the Ravenna texts, but is general across the empire: this type of clause is also included in a contemporary Egyptian papyrus and in rather later Byzantine formulae and documents.136 It is also found in a later Ravenna charter.137 However, only at the time of the Roman law revival did such clauses start to be included routinely in documents elsewhere in the west, as a more active engagement with the implications of the Senatusconsultum and infirmitas sexus arose.138

Beyond the presence of Justinianic law in Ravenna, the other major topic to address is that of the legal professionals in the city. We have already seen that it is difficult to find evidence of specific teachers of law or expert jurists. It is clear that documents were often drawn up by forenses or tabelliones, this latter the more usual and long‑lasting term, typically employed in some other Roman law areas in Italy.139 They also appear to be organized in a

134 Dig. XVI.1; CJ IV.29; Just. Nov. 134.8; Epit. Iul. LV.198. For earlier legal texts, see Brev. Pauli Sententiae II.11; Ed. Theod. 133; cf. CTh II.16.3. See generally A. Arjava, Women and Law in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 1996), pp. 237–41. 135 CJ V.35.3; Just. Nov. 94.2 (539) and 118.5 (543). 136 P. Herm. 35; H. Saradi‑Mendelovici, ‘A contribution to the study of Byzantine notarial formulas: the infirmitas sexus of women and the sc. Velleianum’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, lxxxiii (1990), 72–90; A. Peters‑Custot, ‘La mention du sénatus‑consulte velléien dans les actes grecs d’Italie du Sud et Sicilie’, in HBI, ii (2012), 51–72. Much of the Byzantine evidence is very late. 137 CR VIII/IX, no. 4, p. 11 (767). 138 P. Riesenberg, ‘Roman law, renunciations and business in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries’, in Essays in Medieval Life and Thought in Honor of Austin P. Evans, ed. J. H. Mundy and others (New York, 1955), pp. 207–25; J. H. Pryor, Business Contracts of Medieval Provence (Toronto, 1981), p. 25. 139 Forenses: e.g., P. Ital. I.13 (ChLA XXIX.880) ll. 82–3 (553); II.29 (ChLA XLV.1332) l. 5 (504); II.36 (ChLA XXI.715) l. 59 (6th century). Tabelliones: e.g., P. Ital. I.8 (ChLA XVII.652) iii.12–13 (564); P. Ital. II.37 (ChLA XXI.716) ll. 3, 102 (591); II.56 (ChLA IX.400) l. 5 (613/641); P.†44 (Marini 128) l. 9 = Tjäder, Nichtliterarischen lateinischen Papyri II, p. 48. For tabelliones



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guild (schola)140 and routinely describe themselves as tabellio of Ravenna (or Classe), although it is far from clear how formal membership or training was. Justinian decreed that tabelliones who failed to execute documents properly would lose their statio or formal place of business.141 Although he presumably had Constantinople in mind, where such control over taboullarioi is still attested in the early tenth century,142 this could have applied to Ravenna, where at least one writer of a document describes himself by his statio.143 It is important, however, to distinguish tabelliones from notarii, who are primarily in the service of officials. There was a corps of notaries at the imperial court in the fifth century, some of whom were of particularly high rank. Indeed, the chief notary (primicerius notariorum), John, even donned the purple for a while after the death of Honorius (423–5).144 So long as Ravenna was a ruling city, the government (emperor, king, prefect, exarch) was served by notarii, as with Marcianus serving Odovacer and Johannicius serving Theodore (both noted earlier) or Montanus serving Wittigis.145 The notarii of the bishops, later archbishops, of Ravenna also become very prominent. However, in the papyri, notarii are not significant as drafters of documents.146 Legal expertise can therefore be found nowhere else in the evidence but in the work of the tabelliones. This does not, of course, prove that there were no others with juristic experience, beyond these tabelliones who were the primary creators of legal documents, since the very nature of the documentary evidence means that it is only the work of this type of law professional that is usually seen. Many notarii would also have had some legal background, so it is perhaps no surprise to find the scriniarius Epiphanius advising Archbishop John V about a legal matter

and notarii in Ravenna generally, see M. W. Steinhoff, Origins and Development of the Notariate at Ravenna (Sixth through Thirteenth Century) (unpublished New York University PhD thesis, 1976); Santoni, ‘Ravenna: tabellioni e notai’, in HBI, i (2011), pp. 117–49. 140 Only one mention survives, suggesting a joint schola for Ravenna and Classe, in a mid 7th‑century papyrus (P. Ital. I.24 (ChLA XXIX.865)). 141 Just. Nov. 44.1 (Auth. 45.1; Epit. Iul. XL kp. 169). 142 Book of the Eparch, ch. I (J. Koder, Das Eparchenbuch Leons des Weisen (Vienna, 1991), pp. 74–85). The taboullarioi were supposed to know the law‑books, have good handwriting and be of good character, and had to pay a hefty registration fee after being examined and elected by their fellows. 143 Iulianus, vir honestus (although not called a tabellio or forensis) at P. Ital. I.6 (ChLA XXI.714) ll. 28–9 (575). 144 PLRE II ‘Ioannes 6’. Note also Caecilius, vir spectabilis, at P. Ital. II.59 = ChLA XII.547 (433). 145 PLRE IIIB ‘Montanus’; P. Ital. II.31 (ChLA XX.707) ll. II.6. Montanus is not creating a document, but purchasing a property. 146 See N. Everett, ‘Scribes and charters in Lombard Italy’, SM3, xli (2000), 56–7. Note P. Ital. II.44 (ChLA XXII.721): Paulus, notarius of the Ravenna church, mid 7th century.



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in the 730s.147 There is also occasional reference to other officials of the administration, who may have been legally trained, presumably elsewhere than Ravenna, before taking office. This would seem more reasonable in the sixth century, when the flourishing of law schools in the empire meant that many entering government service would routinely have had some legal training. It was surely the case with the historian Procopius, who acted as consiliarius or assessor to Belisarius in Africa and Italy between the late 520s and early 540s, and who could have attended law school at either Caesarea or Beirut.148 But what should be presumed for his namesake, Procopius the consiliarius of the exarch Eleutherius at Ravenna in c.616, long after even the eastern law schools had ceased to function?149

The tabelliones and notarii, therefore, are the only visible preservers and continuators of Ravenna’s Roman legal heritage through their documentary practices, and indeed, although Roman documents did not necessarily need to be written by a professional (holographic wills written by a testator, for instance, were valid), the ‘professionals’ came to enjoy a de facto monopoly in the production of documents. The evidence enters a trough between the later seventh and the mid ninth centuries, which means that the formal end of imperial rule falls in the least well‑attested period. Yet what does survive in much later documents suggests that political change did not have much impact upon the law of the city.150 The last attested legal text of Byzantine Ravenna is a donation made in 731 by Archbishop John V, preserved unusually on an inscription in S. Apollinare in Classe.151 The last text dated by reference to the emperors in Constantinople belongs to 767152 and from

147 This case, which involved a considerable bribe to the exarch, is obscurely discussed by Agnellus, LPR 152. See N. Tamassia, ‘L’enfiteusi ecclesiastica ravennate e un racconto di Agnello’, Atti e memorie della deputazione de storia patria per le provincie di Romagna, x (1920), 109–20, with F. Theisen, Studien zur Emphyteuse in ausgewählten italienischen Regionen des 12. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt, 2003), pp. 49–50. For a later notarius et scriniarius, note Timotheus (ChLA2 LV.1 = CR VIII/IX, no. 9 [819]). 148 For Procopius’s possible education and training, see A. Cameron, Procopius and the Sixth Century (1985), pp. 5–7; G. Greatrex, ‘Perceptions of Procopius in recent scholarship’, Histos, viii (2014), 79–82. 149 P. Ital. II.38–41 ll. 8–9 and 53–4; PLRE IIIA ‘Eleutherius’ (himself described as a chartularius in the document); PLRE IIIB ‘Procopius 10’. 150 For the development of charters in the exarchate after the end of imperial rule, see F. Santoni, ‘Il documento privato di area romanica in età carolingia’, in Die Privaturkunden der Karolingerzeit, ed. P. Erhart and others (Zürich, 2009), pp. 73–83. 151 P. Rugo, Le iscrizioni dei sec. VI VII VIII esistenti in Italia, III (Cittadella, 1976) no. 9; CR VIII/IX, pp. 155–6. 152 CR VIII/IX, no. 4 (Constantine V and Leo IV). Note that the document of 826 dated by Michael II and Theophilus, cited in a text of 838, was probably written in Venice, then still part of the empire (CR VIII/IX, pp. XXIX–XXX and 27).



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the 780s the Carolingians and their successors as kings and emperors in Italy routinely appear in dating formulae, as do the popes.153

In fact the 767 charter, a donation by Eudochia, ancilla Dei, which only survives in a formal copy made by an imperial notary in 1031, contains numerous Roman law features typical of the earlier Ravennate material. Four of these features are their latest surviving attestations, namely: dating by the emperors (although soon replaced by the western emperors); the grant of the licentia allegandi in the municipal gesta; the retention of a temporary usufruct; and finally the renunciation of the benefit of the Senatusconsultum Velleianum. The document, however, should not be seen as the last relic of a vanishing tradition. Some later changes suggest a logical evolution from previous practice. Thus two ninth‑century charters show men making a renunciation of the benefit of ignorantia iuris, which suggests an attempt at a general extension of the female renunciation clause, albeit one which apparently stalled, since this did not become established.154 Again, from the ninth century, deeds were now allowing immediate entry to property. They state that they (the written instrument) are equivalent to valid traditio, showing that the fiction of the temporary usufruct was no longer deemed necessary.155 Other features of the 767 document enjoy a long life, even up to the tenth or eleventh centuries. These include the stipulatio clause, used later in emphyteutic grants.156 Most significantly, however, the completio by Vitalianus, tabellio of the city, appears at the end of the document.

It is the concluding completio that appears most distinctively Ravennate, indeed particularly distinctive of the city’s tabelliones, more so than for anywhere else except perhaps Rome.157 Despite the fact that the charter record is dominated by material from ecclesiastical archives, especially that of the archbishops, church notaries,158 while certainly important, do not

153 The earliest example dates to 783, at the monastery of S. Donato, Imola (ChLA XXIX.888; CR VIII/IX, no. 8). 154 CR VIII/IX, no. 16 p. 38 (855) and no. 22 p. 55 (mid 9th century). I have failed to find later renunciations of this type in the early medieval Ravenna material. 155 E.g., CR VIII/IX, no. 16 p. 37 (855), no. 35 p. 97 (883); CR X, i, no. 2 p. (901) and ii, no. 124 p. 99 (966); CR XI, i, no. 15 p. 45 (1004) and vii, no. 600 p. 101 (1062). 156 E.g., CR X, ii, no. 120 p. 88 (965), no. 176 p. 241 (973), no. 184 p. 263 (974). 157 On Roman tabelliones, see G. Nicolaj, ‘Il signum dei tabellioni romani: simbologia o realtà giuridica?’, in Palaeographica diplomatica et archivistica: studi in onore di Giulio Battelli (2 vols., Rome, 1979), ii. 7–40; C. Carbonetti Vendittelli, ‘Il sistema documentario romano’, in HBI I (2011), pp. 87–115. 158 Fundamental to the identification of notarii and tabelliones from their documents is the study by G. Buzzi, ‘La Curia arcivescovile e la Curia cittadina di Ravenna dall’850 a 1118’, Bullettino dell’istituto storico italiano, xxxv (1915), 7–186; the church notaries are listed at 33–51.



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become the default creators of documents. Rather it is the tabelliones of the city who dominate the records. As in the Byzantine period, these represent a group that is both lay and civic, with a significant hereditary element.159 The completio clause that they use is remarkably stable throughout the early medieval period, and no significant modifications were made to its wording, position or function until the eleventh century.160

There are two other long‑lasting clauses, each of which claims to be in accordance with the laws – Justinianic law in fact. The first states the irrevocability of donations to ecclesiastical institutions, ‘ut legibus cautum est’,161 although it is not clear exactly which texts are thereby meant.162 The second appears in emphyteutic leases, a Roman type of long lease (in our evidence usually for three lives), which exists in a common Ravennate form in the early medieval period.163 This clause allows for repossession, if rent goes unpaid for two years, ‘ut leges censeunt’, in accordance with a novel of Justinian.164

The stability of so many formulae, however, might be taken as a sign of stagnation, not vitality, in the legal life of the city, and certainly the more routine charters can seldom tell us if their writers or framers had significant understanding of the normative texts upon which they were

159 For the list of tabelliones and their interconnections, see Buzzi, ‘La Curia’, pp. 61–99. 160 See CR XI, v, p. XXXIX; F. Santoni, ‘Un monogramma antico e una formula nuova: note intorno alle carte ravennati di XI–XII secolo’, in Virtute et labore: studi offerti a Giuseppe Avarucci per i suoi settant’anni, ed. R.M. Borraccini and G. Borri (Spoleto, 2008), pp. 43–76. Note that dating by the alien consuetudo Bononiensis is unattested until the very late 11th century, as first used by the tabellio Petrus XXIII in 1086 (Buzzi, ‘La Curia’, p. 113; CR XI, iv, nos. 387–8). 161 First attested in P. Ital. I.20 (ChLA XXI.717) ll. 36–42 (c.600). For some later examples, see CR VIII/IX, no. 16 p. 38 (855), no. 22 p. 54 (mid 9th century), no. 35, p. 97 (883), no. 54, p. 146 (896); Le carte del monastero di S. Andrea Maggiore di Ravenna I, ed. G. Muzzioli (Rome, 1961; repr. 1987), no. 5, p. 17 (942); Regesto di S. Apollinare Nuovo, ed. V. Federici (Rome, 1907), no. 2, p. 11 (973), no. 3, p. 15 (977); CR XI, i, no. 15 p. 45 (1004), vii, no. 577, pp. 50–1 (1013) and iv, no. 324, p. 32 (1073). 162 P. Frezza, L’influsso del diritto romano giustinianeo nelle formule e nella prassi in Italia (Milan, 1974), p. 11, suggests CTh XVI.2.4 = CJ I.2.1, but Just. Nov. 131.4 and CJ VIII.55.10 seem more likely. 163 Tjäder, Nichtliterarischen lateinischen Papyri II, pp. 153–4, and ‘Et ad latus: il posto della datazione e della indicazione del luogo negli scritti della cancelleria imperiale e nelle largizioni di enfiteusi degli archivescovi ravennati’, Studi Romagnoli, xxiv (1973), 91–124; Theisen, Studien zur Emphyteuse, pp. 49–94. 164 Just. Nov. 7.3.2 (Auth. 120.8). The clause should almost certainly be restored into P. Ital. II.44 (ChLA XXII.721) l. 6 (mid 7th century). For some later examples, see CR VIII/IX, no. 15, p. 37 (mid 9th century); CR X, ii, no. 102, p. 37 (960), no. 173, p. 233 (972), no. 185, p. 268 (974), no. 189, p. 277 (975); CR X, iii, no. 194, p. 12 (975/6); CR XI, i, no. 5, p. 15 (1001), no. 32, p. 88 (1012), no. 52, p. 138 (1017); CR XI, iv, no. 355, p. 93 (1078/9).



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originally based, or show how they might wish to do imaginative things with the law. However, the use of a renunciation clause by some men in the ninth century and the development of charters as an effective means of traditio, suggest that documents may reflect experiment and evolution. A few documents, in fact, reveal direct engagement with the heritage of the Justinianic texts in an unusually explicit manner. Arengas, the opening statements giving the underlying justification for a document, are often as formulaic as the other features of the text.165 They can be seen as pious platitudes or statements of the obvious. Commonly they self‑justifyingly explain why it is necessary to put things into writing in the first place. Two tenth‑century arengas written by various Ravennate tabelliones are rather more interesting.166

One is attested first in December 975, in a placitum document written at Ravenna by the tabellio Dominicus,167 although he may not have been its deviser. It was recycled and adapted by later tabelliones in placita of November 994 (or 995)168 and August 1013.169 The arenga invokes the divalium et antiquarum legum institutiones170 for the principle that matters legally determined should not be reopened, and in support gives reference to and quotation from the Liber Novellarum (Epit. Iul. CVI kp. 370)171 and the Liber Codicum (CJ II.4.16). No doubt such a clear statement of the doctrine of res iudicata was intended to make the document it headed appear the last word for the matter it attempted to settle.

165 For arengas in the Ravenna charters, see Buzzi, ‘La Curia’, pp. 120–4; CR X, ii, pp. XXII–XXVII, and CR XI, vii, pp. LXVI–LXXIII. 166 For rather different views of the significance of these arengas at Ravenna, compare G. Nicolaj, Cultura e prassi di notai preirneriani: alle origini del rinascimento giuridico (Milan, 1991), pp. 37–41, with Radding and Ciaralli, The Corpus Iuris Civilis, pp. 73–4. 167 C. Morbio, Storie dei municipi italiani illustrate con documenti inediti, notizie bibliografiche e di belle arti, i (Milan, 1836), no. 31, p. 116; J. Ficker, Forschungen zur Reichs und Rechtsgeschichte Italiens, iv (Innsbruck, 1874), no. 28, p. 37. The name ‘Dominicus’ is restored by Ficker. A fresh transcription of the arenga only is given by R. Volpini, ‘Placiti del Regnum Italiae (secc. IX–XI). Primi contributi per un nuovo censimento’, in Contributi dell’Istituto di Storia Medioevale, iii, ed. P. Zerbi (Milan, 1975), p. 266 n. 83. 168 G. Rabotti, ‘Il placito di Bertinoro del secolo decimo’, Studi Romagnoli, xlvii (1996), 24 = CR X, iii, no. 265, p. 187, at Castro Cesubeo (Constantinus tabellio). The arenga is very fragmentary, so that it is not clear quite how closely it relates to the other versions. 169 CR XI, vii, no. 561, pp. 8–9, at Ravenna (Martinus tabellio). 170 This reflects the text of the 1013 arenga. For 975 Morbio, Ficker and Volpini print ‘divalium quidem agustorum’, which does not make proper grammatical sense nor does it use the expected adjective. The text may represent medieval misconstrual. However, the second arenga discussed below does focus on the divi Augusti, so that perhaps this one also originally referred to both imperial constitutions and ancient institutes. 171 The text matches the Epitome rather than the equivalent passage in the Authenticum 111.1.



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The second arenga is attested most fully in a Pomposa investiture of December 986,172 although perhaps already present in some form in a fragmentary text of October 985,173 and it is later partially reused in an investiture of April 998.174 This invokes the ‘authority of the laws, the precepts of the divine (that is, imperial) institutes,175 and the sanction of the divi Augusti for the rule that correct transfers of ownership of property (by traditio (delivery) and usucapio (possession for a period of time)) have more legal force than bare agreements (nuda pacta) (a version of CJ II.3.20); that physical delivery must be commanded by written documents with the subscription of the witnesses; and that all this is to be in accordance with what Justinian and earlier law‑givers (CJ II.3.20 was originally issued by Diocletian and Maximian) decreed in their constitutions in the ‘secundus liber Codicum’ regarding ‘traditionibus et usucapionibus’ (the first two words of CJ II.3.20). The original author of this arenga seems to be emphasizing the need for the document as witness to actual delivery, and this does in fact suit the Pomposa document quite well, since it talks of transferring ownership (dominium), the key issue in CJ II.3.20, and is quite clear that the required delivery has been effected by the symbolic presentation from grantor to grantee of a sod (for the land) and a column (for the house). The document, of course, is not purely Roman, but a Romano‑Germanic hybrid.176 Note, for instance, the term ‘guazo’ (waso) used for the sod of earth delivered as part of the investiture.177 Ravenna was not legally insulated from the rest of northern Italy. In a world in which emperors turned up in Ravenna with entourages of varied background and training (including in law), and land‑holding crossed varied legal boundaries, it is no surprise that tabelliones from Ravenna could be concerned with procedures and documents that were not necessarily ‘Roman’.178 This may, of course, make the invocation of Roman

172 P. Federici, Rerum Pomposianarum historia (Rome, 1781), i, no. 16, pp. 421–2, at Comacchio, near Pomposa Abbey (Mainfredus, tabellio et dativus). 173 CR X, iii, no. 236 p. 115, at Ravenna. The fragment preserves enough for the date and the type of arenga to be clear. The writer was probably the tabellio Sergius. 174 CR X, iii, no. 272 p. 205, at Ravenna (Petrus, consul et tabellio). 175 Only the Pomposa text mentions the divales institutiones, which are divales constitutiones in the 985 arenga and omitted in the 998 arenga. As noted at the end of section 2 above, caution should be exercised in reading this as a specific reference to the Institutes of Justinian. 176 Nicolaj, Cultura e prassi, p. 38 n. 91. 177 Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch, iv.6 (Munich, 2012), col. 857 s.v. guaso. This is related, of course, to the modern English ‘ooze’. For an even earlier instance in a Ravenna text, note CR VIII/IX, no. 54, p. 144 (896). 178 For the spread of Germanic forms in the Roman law areas of northern Italy, see, for instance, A. Castagnetti, Arimanni in ‘Langobardia’ e in ‘Romania’ dall’età carolingia all’età comunale (Verona, 1996), pp. 149–76.



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legal authority even more pointed, naturalizing it within a composite environment. Again, those involved in the Pomposa deed would have had no idea that CJ II.3.20 would in the future provide an oft‑repeated brocard at the heart of the intense late medieval and early modern juristic debates over the role of actual (or symbolic) delivery, as opposed to bare agreement in property transactions.179 However, the fact that some early documents had eschewed traditio, by means of the short‑term retention of a usufruct, later replaced by those that considered that they alone were sufficient for valid traditio, may mean that there was some debate regarding the adequacy of purely documentary processes. Thus a Roman legal doctrine was found that required the physical act, properly witnessed. If this interpretation is correct, some consideration of how documents and practice related to key normative texts, which were evidently still known,180 preoccupied a few people in tenth‑century Ravenna.

Finally, the reference to the divi Augusti (that is, deceased emperors) is quite striking. Already the Carolingians had occasionally referred to their predecessors as divi in the ancient manner,181 but this is also an Ottonian trait. The actual combination ‘divi Augusti’ is rare, but is used, for instance, by the child Otto III (under his mother’s influence?) for his father and grandfather in a charter of 990.182 The invocation of the ancient Roman divi in Ravennate arengas of the later tenth century may not seem out of place in the world of Ottonian renovatio imperii.

The Ravenna charters, therefore, reveal tabelliones as continuators of the Roman legal tradition, more consistently and for longer than anywhere else in northern or central Italy, even than in Rome, another area of strong Roman‑Byzantine heritage.183 But they were also gradualist innovators, and even to a limited extent direct engagers with Justinianic texts. Leo VI had expected the taboullarioi in tenth‑century Constantinople to know their way around the official law‑codes (the Prochiron and the Basilica).184 While nothing similar

179 See E. J. H. Schrage, ‘Traditionibus et usucapionibus, non nudis pactis dominia rerum transferuntur: die Wahl zwischen dem Konsens‑ und dem Traditionsprinzip in der Geschichte’, in ‘Ins Wasser geworfen und Ozeane durchquert’: Festschrift für Knut Wolfgang Nörr, ed. M. Ascheri and others (Cologne, 2003), pp. 913–58. 180 I see no reason to suppose these references are purely tralatician. CJ II.3.20 could have derived from one of the north Italian ecclesiastical collections (e.g., Lex Romana Canonice Compta c.266; Collectio Anselmo Dedicata VII.98), but CJ II.4.16 and Epit. Iul. CVI.370 are in neither; cf. Nicolaj, Cultura e prassi, p. 38, n. 91. 181 E.g. MGH DD LK no. 28 (903 at Regensburg). 182 DD O III no. 62 (at Frankfurt); cf. divi imperatores at DD O II no. 276 (983 at Cassano). 183 Carbonetti Vendittelli, ‘Il sistema documentario romano’, in HBI I (2011); G. Nicolaj, ‘Breve viaggio fra i documenti altomedievali dell’Italia bizantina’, in HBI I (2011), pp. 169–87. 184 The Book of the Eparch I.2 (Koder, Eparchenbuch, pp. 74–5).



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was formally expected of tenth‑century tabelliones in Ravenna, they clearly had some acquaintance with their equivalent legal corpus.

By the next century, of course, there was an explosion of interest in the Justinianic texts across much of Italy. Despite the lasting impact of Roman law and legal forms upon Ravenna’s charters, the fingerprints of Ravennate legal experts upon this legal renaissance are sufficiently smudged as to be almost unreadable. The attribution of texts or jurists to Ravenna in this period has seldom been beyond challenge, even if sometimes a coherent or defensible case can be made.185 One well‑known example can stand in for this debate, the figure of Petrus Crassus. He epitomizes the extent to which the image of Ravenna as a locus of a vibrant legal culture can be created from uncertain evidence. Crassus is the supposed author of the Defence of Henry IV of 1084186 and he is also often presumed to be a Ravennate jurist, if only because of his familiarity with the Justinianic texts, from which he quotes more than two dozen times.187 Yet both the identity and the locus of the author of the Defence are far from certain, built upon inference and even circular reasoning. ‘Crassus’ may in fact be a phantom, and any connection of the tract’s author with Ravenna is guesswork.188 The idea that by the late eleventh century only a Ravenna jurist would be able and willing to cite the Justinianic material for his purpose does not seem a necessary conclusion.189

Concluding remarksWhat can we conclude about Ravenna, maker, teacher and user of Roman law? Our evidence is so often thin that it has led scholars to considerable inference and even unsupported guesses. The view that sees Ravenna as the key thread linking the law of the late empire with that of the eleventh‑century revival can hardly be given a ringing endorsement. In particular, the idea of

185 Texts at times attributed have included the Libellus de imperatoria potestate, ed. G. Pertz, MGH SS III (Hanover, 1839), pp. 719–22 and the pseudo‑Justinianic procedural constitutions in the Cologne Institutes manuscript (Historisches Archiv W328; Macino, Sulle tracce, pp. 92–3; Die Institutionenglosse des Gualcausus, ed. H. Fitting (Berlin, 1891), pp. 122–38). See, classically, P. S. Leicht, ‘Ravenna e Bologna’, in Atti del congresso internazionale di diritto romano. Bologna, i (Pavia, 1934), 284, 287. For recent controversies over the legal origins of the Cologne manuscript, see R. Feenstra, ‘Zur Faksimileedition der Kölner Institutionenhandschrift und zur Glossa Coloniensis’, Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis, lxxix (2011), 521–32. 186 Ed. L. von Heinemann in MGH LdL I (Hanover, 1891), pp. 432–53. 187 He quotes the Code, the Institutes and the Epitome of Julian (listed at MGH LdL I, pp. 665–6). 188 See I. S. Robinson, Authority and Resistance in the Investiture Contest (Manchester, 1978), pp. 75–83; L. Melve, Inventing the Public Sphere: the Public Debate during the Investiture Contest (c.1030–1122) (2 vols., Leiden, 2007), pp. 349–59. 189 Radding and Ciaralli, The Corpus Iuris Civilis, pp. 100–1.



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a strong tradition of legal teaching at Ravenna is problematic, without clear evidence of the copying of older normative texts or the creation of newer commentaries and teaching materials. Indeed, such as exist are often clearly attributable elsewhere. But Roman law in some fashion was continuously used in Ravenna throughout the early medieval period and there was an unbroken tradition in documentary practice, stronger than elsewhere in northern Italy. This may suggest the stagnation of a moribund tradition, but some degree of evolution and innovation is also perceptible. Ultimately, the Justinianic reconquest left a significant legacy of law at Ravenna that never quite vanished from the former capital.


Roman law in Ravenna

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Transcript of Roman law in Ravenna